
Class. r , , , . - 
Gwriglitl^" Ic'^ . 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



CATHCARTS 

LITERARY READER 

a Jlatiual of ISnglisj} iLtterature ^6^/ 



PiEING TYPICAL SELECTIONS FROM SOME OF THE BEST 
BRITISH AND AMERICAN AUTHORS FROM SHAKE- 
SPEARE TO THE PRESENT TIME, CHRONO- 
LOGICALLY ARRANGED, WITH BIOGRAPH- 
ICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES, AND 
NUMEROUS NOTES, Etc. 

By GEORGE R. CATHCART 



WITH PORTRAITS 




ssa^^i^^ 



APR 23 1892^ 



\V^«?" -if.Yr!*\. 



NEW YORK . : • CINCINNATI • : • CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



u 






Copyright, Wk, by 

IVISON, BLAKEMAN, TAYLOR, & Co. 

Copyright, 189B, by 
AMERICAN Book Company. 




mnitoemts Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



PREFACE 



IT is now more than seventeen years since the first 
edition of the '' LITERARY READER " was presented 
to the pubHc. At that time the Compiler declared that 
he had not designed to make the work a compendium 
of EngHsh literature, but rather to provide a means of 
acquiring a fair knowledge of that literature for those who 
might not be able to pursue a special course of study in 
it. It was recognized that in the catalogue of school 
studies, literature then held but a humble place; its value 
to the mass of scholars had been undervalued, — it had 
long been esteemed a branch of knowledge really useful 
only to the few who aspire to a liberal education. Public 
sentiment had, fortunately, undergone a change touching 
this matter within a few years, and the book was pre- 
pared in the avowed hope of furthering that change, and 
of confirming literature in its true place among school 
studies. 

It is no small satisfaction to be able to record that 
the success of the '* Literary Reader " in its original edi- 
tion was such as to justify this hope; and a new edition 
is now put forth, embodying such changes and improve- 
ments as the higher and severer demands of the time 
seem to make necessary. This work, not less than the 
former edition of the '' Literary Reader," is intended 



iv PREFACE 

for the use of schools as a text-book, by the means of 
which the learner may acquire, simultaneously, proficiency 
in reading and no inconsiderable familiarity with some of 
the best pages of English literature. Still, it is believed 
that, even more than in its former shape, the book will 
be found serviceable by the general reader. 

The recognition of distinctively scientific writers as 
contributors to letters is continued. In its early days 
science was dry and almost repellent to all save its favored 
students ; but its modern exponents have not failed to see 
the importance of presenting it in attractive guise, and the 
writings of Agassiz, Gray, Dana, Lyell, Tyndall, Huxley, 
and others abound in passages of great beauty even when 
judged by the standards of pure literature. 

Among the leading features of this revision are the 
Definitions and Outline of Study, which form the intro- 
duction to the book; the chapter on the Beginnings of 
English Literature, which covers the period previous to 
the time when our language took its permanent form ; 
and the subdivision of our literature into the four great 
periods of Elizabethan Literature, the Literature of the 
Commonwealth and Restoration, the Literature of the 
Eighteenth Century, and the Literature of the Nineteenth 
Century. The biographical and critical notices have been 
rewritten and much extended, and an introductory chapter 
has been prepared to each of the four grand divisions of 
our literature. Each one of these periods is marked by 
distinct and definite outlines ; each one has its own char- 
acter, and arranges itself in something like systematic 
order around certain great central names. It has there- 
fore been possible to make the book orderly and con- 
tinuous in its character, and to give it an historical 



PRhFACE V 

perspective which shows forth the masters and master- 
pieces of our literature in. their true proportions. 

The portraits which adorn the volume have been drawn 
by Mr. Jacques Reich. They form a series remarkable for 
fullness, authenticity, and artistic merit. 

The Compiler acknowledges, as formerly, his obligations 
to Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Messrs. D. Appleton and 
Company, and Messrs. J. R. Osgood and Company, and 
their successors, for their courtesy in permitting the use 
of selections from their copyright editions of American 
writers. 

He also acknowledges his many obligations to his 
friend Mr. Henry D. Harrower for the editorial super- 
vision of the work, which has been entirely in his charge ; 
to him are to be credited in large measure such improve- 
ments as may appear in the revision. 

G. R. C. 

New York, January, 1892. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 

Definitions and Outline of Study 



Page 
iii 
xi 



I 
The Beginnings of English Literature 



II 



The Elizabethan Literature . 

William Shakespeare 19 

1. Othello's Speech to the Senate 21 

2. The Winning of Jiihet .... 23 

3. Wolsey on the Vicissitudes of Life 24 

4. Hamlet's Soliloquy 25 

5. Polonius's Advice to his Son . . 26 

6. Tiie Seven Ages of Man ... 27 

7. Mercy 28 

8. England ..,.,.... 29 

9. The Mind ... . . , . 29 
10. Perfection .... 29 
ir. Ingratitude rebuked ..... 30 
12. Five Sonn"fets 31 

Ben Jonson 34 

1. On Shakespeare ...... 36 

2. On the Portrait of Shakespeare . 39 

3. Hymn to Diana ...... 39 

4. Two Epitaphs ....... 40 

5. Tiie Noble Nature .... 40 



Francis Bacon 

1. Of Friendship ....... 

2. Of Goodness and Goodness of 

Nature 

3. Of Learning ...... 

A Garland of Elizabethan Lyrics . 

1. The Gifts of God (George Her- 

bert) 

2. The Happy Life (Henry Wotton) 

3. Death, the Leveler (James Shir- 

ley) 

4. On the Tombs in Westminster 

Abbey (Francis Beaumont) 

5. Melancholy (John Fletcher) . . 

6. To Dianeme (Robert Herrick) . 

7. To Lucasta, on going to the Wars 

(Richard Lovelace) .... 

Notable Contemporary Writers . 



Ill 

The Literature of the Commonwealth and the Restoration 



John Milton ........ 61 

I. The Invocation and Introduction 

to " Paradise Lost " . = . . 62 

2 Adam and Eve's Morning Hymn 64 

3. May Morning ...... 66 

4. Lycidas 66 

John Dryden 73 

I. Song for St. Cecilia>Day . . . 74 

2 Mac Flecknoe 77 



3. Ode to the Memory of Mrs Anne 
Killigrew ........ 

Three Contemporary Songs . , . 

1. The Retreat (Henry Vaughan) . 

2. A Supplication (Abraham Cowley) 

3. Song of the Emigrants \n Ber- 

muda (Andrew Marvel!) 

Notable Contemoorary Writer<5 



59 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



IV 



The Literature of the Eighteenth Century 



Jonathan Swift o 

Philosophers and Projectors . . 
Joseph Addison 

1. Indian Traditions of the World of 

Spirits . 

2. The Spacious Firmament . . . 
Alexander Pope 

1. The Present Condition of Man 

vindicated 

2. Greatness 

3. Elegy to the Memory of an Unfor- 

tunate Lady . . 

4. On the Poet Gay, in Westminster 

Abbey 

Benjamin Franklin 

Remembrances of My Boyhood . 
Samuel Johnson ....... 

1. A Palace in a Valley 

2. The Discontent of Rasselas , . 
Oliver Goldsmith 

I. The Sagacity of the Spider . . . 



93 
94 
100 



106 
107 



109 
no 



2. Tlie Deserted Village .... 

3. Home 

Edmund Burke 

1. On Conciliation with America . 

2. The Decay of Chivalrous Sent! 

ment » . . . 

William Cowper ...... 

1. Alexander Selkirk 

2. Apostrophe to England • . 

3. On Mercy. ..-.,.. 
Edward Gibbon 

Arabia ......... 

Thomas Jefferson 

1. The Character of Washington . 

2. A Profession of Political Faith 

Robert Burns 

1. Man was made to Mourn . 

2. Despondency ....,, 

3. To a Mountain Daisy . . . , 

4. Bannockburn ..... 
Notable Contemporary Writers 



Page 

. 88 

142 

• 145 

146 

. 148 



153 

154 
156 
157 

IS9 
160 

168 
169 
171 

173 
174 
177 
179 
i8i 
183 



The Literature of the Nineteenth Century 



W^alter Savage Landor .... 

1 . Oliver Cromwell and Walter Noble 

2. Rose Aylmer = 

3. The One Gray Hair ..... 

William Wordsworth 

1. The Boy and the Owls . <, . . 

2. Ruth 

3. The Solitary Reaper 

4. She was a Phantom of Delight . 

Sir Walter Scott 

1. Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen 

Elizabeth 

2. Lochinvar 

3. The Last Minstrel 

4. Love of Country ...... 

5. A Serenade .... .... 

Sydney Smith 

1. The Pleasures of Knowledge . . 

2. Wit and Wisdom ...... 

3. The Science of Government . . 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge .... 

I. The Importance of Method. 



191 
192 
200 
200 

202 
204 
205 
208 
209 



213 
218 
219 
220 



224 
226 



229 
230 



2- Kubla Khan ..... 
3. Dead Calm in the Tropics 
4 Severed Friendship . 

5. Youth and Age , . r 

6. The Good Great Man 
Charles Lamb .... 

1. The Origin of Roast Pig 

2. The Old Familiar Faces 
Daniel Webster. . . . 

1. The Battle of Bunker Hill 

2. Eulogium on Washington 

3. The American Union 
Washington Irving . 

1. Ichabod Crane . . 

2. The Discovery of America 
Lord Byron o . . . . 

1. Modern Greece . . 

2. Rome . . . ■ . 

3. The Ocean .... 

4. I saw Thee weep . . 
William CuUgn Bryant 

I. The Death of the Flowers 



187 

234 
236 
237 
238 
239 
240 
241 
246 

247 
248 
251 
254 
256 
257 
266 

271 
272 
274 

275 
277 

278 
279 



CONTENTS 



IX 



Page 

2. Thanatopsis 280 

3 To a Waterfowl 283 

Thomas Carlyle 285 

1. Execution of Marie-Antoinette . 2S6 

2. Night View of a City 2S9 

3. The Reign of Terror 291 

Ralph Waldo Emerson .... 293 

1. Napoleon Bonaparte 294 

2. Good-by, Proud World .... 298 

3. The Sea 299 

4. Concord Fight 300 

Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer . . . 301 

1. On Revolution 302 

2. The Surrender of Grenada . . . 305 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning . .310 

1. A Dead Rose 311 

2. Sleep . . 312 

3. The Cry of the Children . . . . 314 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . 315 

1. The Wreck of the " Hesperus " . 316 

2. The Ship of State 319 

3. Disaster 320 

4. The Launching of the Ship . . . 321 

5. The Village Blacksmith .... 322 

6. A Northland Picture .... 324 

British Historians 389 

Thomas Babington Macaulay . 391 

1. The Puritans 392 

2. The Progress of England . . . 396 
James Anthony Froude ... 398 

1. Execution of Sir Thomas More 399 

2. The Book of Job ..... 401 
American Historians 406 

William Hickling Prescott . . 408 

1. The Valley and City of Mexico 409 

2. The Colonization of America . 411 
George Bancroft 415 

The Discovery of the Mississippi . 416 

John Lothrop Motley .... 421 

Historic Progress 422 

British Scientists 428 

Sir Charles Lyell 430 

The Dismal Swamp 431 

John Tyndall 436 

An Address to Students .... 437 

Thomas Henry Huxley ... 443 

Scientific Education 444 



Page 

John Greenleaf Whittier .... 328 

T. Maud Muller 329 

2. The Barefoot Boy 334 

3. Winter 337 

Oliver Wendell Holmes .... 338 

1. On Amateur Writers 339 

2. Under the Violets 345 

Alfred Tennyson 347 

1. The Charge of the Light Brigade . 348 

2. Lady Clara Vere de Vere . . 350 

3. Arden shipwrecked 352 

4. Widow and Child 353 

5. The Days that are no more . . . 354 
Edgar Allan Foe 355 

1. Annabel Lee 356 

2. From " The Raven " 357 

3. The Bells 358 

John Ruskin 362 

1. Water 363 

2. The Clouds 367 

James Russell Lowell 370 

1. My Garden Acquaintance . . . 371 

2. Democracy 375 

3. Yussouf 383 

4. An Licident in a Railroad Car . . 384 

5. The Heritage 387 

American Scientists 450 

Louis J. R. Agassiz 451 

America the Old World .... 452 

Asa Gray 458 

How Certain Plants capture In- 
sects . 459 

James Dwight Dana 464 

Knowledge of Nature ..... 465 

British Novelists 471 

William Makepeace Thackeray 473 

Last Days of Colonel Newcome . 474 

Charles Dickens 479 

Mr. Pickwick's Dilemma .... 480 

"George Eliot" 486 

Doctor Lydgate 487 

American Novelists 496 

James Fenimore Cooper . . 497 

The Indian Adoption 499 

Nathaniel Hawthorne .... 503 

Mosses from an Old Manse . . . 504 



CONTENTS 



Page 

The Sonnet 507 

A Group of British Sonnets . . 508 

1. On Milton (William Words- 

worth) 508 

2. Night and Death (Joseph 

Blanco White) 509 

3. On first Looking into " Chap- 

man's Homer " (John Keats) 509 

4. On the Castle of Chillon (Lord 

Byron) 510 

5. When We are All asleep (Rob- 

ert Buchanan) 510 

6. The Grasshopper and the 

Cricket (Leigh Hunt) . . 511 

7. Immortality (Westland Mar- 

ston) 512 

8. How do I love Thee? (Eliza- 

beth Barrett Browning) . . 512 

9. " Retro Me, Sathana! " (Dante 

Gabriel Rossetti) .... 513 

10. The Buoy-Bell (Charles Tenny- 

son-Turner) 513 

11. The First Kiss (Theodore 

Watts) I14 

12. Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe 

Shelley) , . 514 

13. "Timor Mortis conturbat Me" 

(Sir Noel Baton) . . . . 515 



Page 

14. The Dead (Mathilde Blind) . 515 

15. Substance and Shadow (John 

Henry Newman) .... 516 

16. Don Quixote (Austin Dobson) 516 

17. Sorrow (Aubrey de Vere) . . 517 

18. Guns of Peace (Miss Mulock) . 517 

19. On His Blindness (John Mil- 

ton) S18 

Some American Sonnets .... 519 

1. The Street (James Russell 

Lowell) 519 

2. Return (Lillah Cabot Perry) . 519 

3. Mazzini (Helen Hunt Jack- 

son) 520 

4. Orpheus (Margaret Fuller) . . 520 

5. " Full Many Noble Friends " 

(James Russell Lowell) . . 521 

6. Night (James Gates Percival). 521 

7. Holy Land (Richard Watson 

Gilder) 522 

S. At Last (Paul Hamilton Hayne) 522 
9. To a Friend (Richard Henry 

Stoddard) . 523 

10. Science (Edgar Allan Poe) . . 524 

11. There never yet was Flower 

(James Russell Lowell) . . 524 

Notable Contemporary Writers 525 



Cathcarts Literary Reader 



DEFINITIONS AND OUTLINE OF STUDY 



"HPHE literature of any language is the whole body of 
-*- its written productions, both of knowledge and of 
imagination. 

The term belles-lettres (elegant letters) is applied to that 
part of literature which consists of works of taste, sentiment 
and imagination. It therefore includes poetry and eloquence, 
and excludes works of science and of mere research. 

Literature divides itself into the two forms of expression, 
— prose and poetry. 

Prose is the direct, ordinary, unmetncal form of speech 
and writing. 

Poetry is elevated or impassioned expression, in metri- 
cal and verse form. It is of two types, — rhymed verse, 
and blank (unrhymed) verse. 

Verse is a term frequendy used as synonymous with poetry, 
but in its technical sense a verse (Lat. versa, turned) is one 
line of a poem. 

Rhythm is an harmoulous succession of vocal sounds, and is, 
therefore, a necessary characteristic of poetry. It is often found 



xii CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

in lofty and imaginative prose. '' If Burke and Bacon were not 
poets," said Thomas Moore, " then I know not what poetry 
means." 

Literature may be narrative, descriptive, expository, or 
persuasive,; or it may be all of these. 

Thus, in their main features, history, biography, and books of 
travel are both narrative and descriptive ; the essay, the formal 
treatise, and works of science are expository, and, generally, 
descriptive ; oratory and poetry are persuasive, and may par- 
take of the other qualities above-named. 



II 

Style is the method of expressing thought in language. 
The characteristics of good style are ( i ) clearness, (2) force. 
and (3) elegance. 

These characteristics depend upon — 

1. the choice of words, 

(ytt) as to their derivation, 

{b) as to their shades of meaning, 

(<;) as to their mutual fitness of association; 

2. the order of zuords in the sentence, 

{a) as direct, or grammatical, 
(/;) as indirect, or rhetorical ; 

Thus, " Thy dying eyes were closed by foreign hands," is a 
sentence arranged in the usual or '' grammatical " order ; while 
the same sentence rhetorically arranged is, '' By foreign hands 
thy dying eyes were closed " (p. 113). 

3. tJie construction of the sentence, — 

{a) the loose sentence, 
it?) the period ; 

Thus, " We came to our journey's end, at last, with no small 
difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads and bad 



DEFINITIONS AND OUTLINE OF STUDY xiii 

weather," is a loose sentence ; that is, it can be brought to a 
close at any of the points marked by the comma. Herbert 
Spencer reconstructs the sentence into a period as follows : " At 
last, with no small difficulty, and after much fatigue, we came, 
through deep roads and bad weather, to our journey's end." 

4. devices of arrangement of the parts of the sentence, 

(<^) simple devices, such as repetition, antithesis, simile, 
suspense, climax, 

{b) the oblique devices that are aft'orded by the 
figures of speech, the more important of which are 
metaphor, personification, metonymy, and synecdoche. 

(a) Repetition may be of words or phrases, and often 
adds greatly to force. Thus : 

" By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, 
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, 
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned 5 
By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned." 

Antithesis is the balancing of opposites in a sentence, 
affording by the contrast a powerful emphasis. Thus: 
" He was a learned man among lords, and a lord among 
learned men." — Johnson. 

Simile is the formal and direct likening of one thing 
to another, and is chiefly used for purposes of ornament. 
It is direct comparison, — as: 

" Flowers are lovely; love is flowerdike''^ (p. 238). 

Suspense is that arrangement of words which holds the 
attention of the reader by leaving the sense incomplete 
until the sentence is closed, — as : 

" Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, 
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn. 
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star. 
Sat gray -haired Satiirny — Keats. 



xiv CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Climax (Lat. climax, a ladder) is such an arrangement 
of the parts of a sentence that these rise step by step in 
importance and dignity, — as : 

" The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve." — Tempest iv. i. 

Anticlimax is the reverse of climax, and produces, by a series 
of descending steps, an impression of absurdity. It may be em- 
ployed for purposes of ridicule, as in VV^aller's lines : 

'* And thou, Dalhousie, thou great god ot war, 
Lieutenant-colonel to the Earl of Mar ! '' 

(b) A figure of speech (oblique device) is the use of a 
word or expression in a different sense from that which 
properly belongs to it, for the sake of giving life or em- 
phasis to an idea. 

Metaphor is equivalent to simile, with the words of 
likeness omitted, — as : 

{simile) " flowers are lovely ; love is /lower-like j 
{metaphor) Friendship is a sheltering tree." 

Metaphors should never be mixed. That is, the image raised 
in the mind must not, until it is completed, be broken in upon 
by another. Thus, m the frequently cited couplet of Addison : 

" I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain, 
That longs to launch mto a nobler strain,'" 

the first line is not open to objection, since the word " Muse " is 
used by metonymy (see below) for Pegasus, the winged horse of 
the Muses ; but the mtroduction, m the second line, of a new 
figure, that of a ship, confuses the sense and violates good taste. 
The metaphor can always be converted into simile. 

Personification is that figure which attributes the charac- 
teristics of a living being to inanimate things, — as: 



DEFINITIONS AND OUTLINE OF STUDY xv 

" Righteousness and peace have kissed each other; " 
" The sea saw it, and fled." — Psalms. 

Apostrophe, vision, allegory, and fable are figures of speech 
which may all be considered as varieties of personification. 

Apostrophe is direct address to the thing personified, — 
generally to something absent as though present : 

" Chillon! thy prison is a holy place." — Byrox. 

"O Death! where is thy sting? O Gravel where is thy victory?" 

I Cor. XV. 55. 

Vision speaks of absent or past things indirectly, and as though 
present : 

'• 'T is she ! but why that bleeding bosom gored ? 
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?" (p. 112.) 

Allegory is a prolonged personification in narrative form. 
Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," and Spenser's " Faerie Queen," 
are allegories. 

The FABLE is a brief allegory. 

Metonymy is that figure by which one thing is brought 
to mind under the name of another. Thus: "The pen is 
mightier than the sword." Here "the pen" stands for in- 
tellectual strength, and "the sword" for physical strength. 

Synecdoche is that figure of speech by which a part is 
put for the whole, thus giving a more convenient or more 
accurate presentation of the idea. Thus, " A fleet of ten 
sail'' offers a striking picture of a fleet at sea, and avoids 
the possible conception of ten ships in dock. 

5. varieties of tJiougJit and feeling that do not affect the 
arrangement of the parts of the sentence. 

Irony is the assertion of an opinion, or the expression of 
an emotion, in such a tone, or under such circumstances, 
as to imply the opposite. Thus: 



xvi CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

" Here under leave of Brutus and the rest, 
For Brutus is an honorable man^ 
So are they all, all honorable inen^ 
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral." 

Shakespeare : Julius Ccssar, iii. 2. 

Satire and sarcasm are also types of expression that depend 
rather upon the spirit than upon the structure of the sentences in 
which they are conveyed. 

Hyperbole is exaggerated expression, and is generally 
used to increase the impressiveness of what is said. Thus, 

" And this man 
Is now become a god I . . . 
He doth bestride the narrow world 
Like a colossus." 

Shakespeare Julius Ccesar, 1. 2. 

Allusion (Lat. alluderc, to play with or about) is such a 
use of terms as brings to mind something not explicitly 
mentioned. Thus, 

" So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, 
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves " (p. 72). 

Allusion is to be distinguished from reference, in which the 
thing brought to mind is directly mentioned. 

Ill 

The following Outline of Study ^ may be found helpful 
In the literary examination of the texts gathered together 
in this volume. 

1. What is the literary nature of the piece? Is it prose, 
or poetry? Descriptive, expository, or what? 

1 The accounts of the several Periods of our literature, and the Sketches 
of the various authors, are intended to be merely informatory. While 
pupils ought to be possessed of the main features of these, the class exercise 
should be confined to literary study of the successive extracts. 



DEFINITIONS AND OUTLINE OF STUDY xvii 

2. What is the intent of the author, i. e., what is the 
central thought of the piece? Does this thought find 
complete expression? Is it developed in an orderly 
progression ? 

3. Look closely into the vocabulary of the lesson. 
Which predominate in it, — words of Saxon, or words of 
Latin origin? (For any etymologies you do not know, 

consult Webster's International Dictionary.) In the 

sentence of paragraph substitute Saxon words for 

those of Latin origin. What is the resulting effect upon 
the style of the sentence? Is it clearer, or stronger, or 
more graceful? Reverse the process in the next sentence. 

4. Consider the meanings of terms, especially in the 

case of qualifying words. Reconstruct the sentence 

of paragraph by substituting synonyms for all em- 
phatic words. Are the changes of meaning for the 
better? Why? or why not? Are the rhythm and taste- 
fulness of the sentence improved? 

5. Invert the grammatical order of words, in the 

sentence of the paragraph, from direct to indirect. 

Is the rhetorical order the stronger? Is it suitable to 
the nature of the subject and to the context? In the 

sentence of paragraph reverse the process. Is 

the author's meaning made clearer by the change, or not? 

6. Point out a period in paragraph . Can you 

convert it into a loose sentence ? What is the effect of 
the change? Is the sentence clearer, or not? Stronger, 
or weaker? 

If the piece is a poem it will afford exercise in reconstruction, 
both grammatical and rhetorical, by means of paraphrasing. 
This may be applied to the stanza, or to the whole selection, 
and will often make clear what would else seem obscure. 



xviii CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

Paraphrase the poem on page . Is the composi- 
tion lengthened? Why? Does fitness require that any 
of the poetic terms should find substitutes when repro- 
duced in the prose form? 

7. What figures of speech can you point out in para- 
graph page ? Name them. Define them. 

Could the same thought in any instance be expressed 
with as much grace and force without the figure? Are 
the several figures well carried out? 

Convert the metaphor in the sentence into a simile. 

Change the allusion in sentence to direct rejerence. 

8. Note the general qualities of the style of the selection, 

(^a) as to clearness. Is the phraseology simple, or 
verbose? The treatment specific, or vague? Do you 
detect faults of tautology or circumlocution? 

(^) as to force. Is any strength of the piece due to 
antitheses, repetitions, suspense, or climax? 

(^) as to elegance. Is the arrangement of words and 
phrases harmonious, and therefore pleasurable to the ear? 
If not, express the same meaning in words of your own. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 

A N historical account of English literature would have 
-^^^ for its outline a description of the best books of all 
kinds that have been written in the English language. It 
would therefore necessarily involve some account of the 
history of the language itself, — of its beginnings, so far 
as they can be traced, of its successive modifications, and 
of the several influences that have affected it. 

The English language was formed and grew to its ma- 
turity in the British Islands. It is now spoken in our own 
country and in British colonies and dependencies through- 
out the world, — in all by more than one hundred millions 
of people. By the close of the twentieth century it will 
doubtless be the language of three times that number of 
men. 

The speech from which our present English derives the 
greater part of its structural characteristics was spoken 
fourteen hundred years ago in the lowland countries bor- 
dering upon the Baltic and North seas. In Schleswig 
there is a district which still bears the name of Angeln. 
The speech of the inhabitants of this region was rough 
and guttural, and consisted at the most of about t^vo thou- 
sand words. The language of the lowlanders of to-day is 
Teutonic, and so was that of their ancestors, the Angles, 
Jutes, and Saxons, of whom we are speaking. It did not 
in those early times have the name English, but was most 
probably called Deiitsch, or TeiUish. About the middle 



2 CATHCART'3 LITERARY READER 

of the fifth century this speech was carried by advent- 
urers and colonists across the North Sea to the shores of 
Britain. 

These invaders from the mainland found the island that 
is now called Great Britain peopled by a race of men 
who spoke a strange language, and who were poor, half- 
barbarous, and unable to offer much resistance to the 
encroachments of the new-comers. Little by little the 
native Britons were driven southward and westward, until 
at last they found refuge in Cornwall and Wales, and their 
lands were possessed by their Teutonic conquerors. The 
language of the conquered Britons was Celtic ; and it is 
noteworthy that very few words of it have found their way 
into the English vocabulary. 

The three groups of Teutons who thus colonized the 
most of England settled themselves in different parts of 
the island. They used different dialects of the same lan- 
guage, and these dialects continued distinct from one an- 
other for several centuries. Then, by reason of growth of 
population, community of interest, and the closer relations 
which resulted, the three dialects merged into a common 
speech, — one which could for the first time properly be 
called English. 

It is a familiar fact that the first literary utterances of 
every language take the form of verse, and accord- 
ingly the earliest Anglo-Saxon composition of which we 
have any record is the " Beowulf," the authorship of which 
is unknown. Its date has been variously placed in the 
fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries ; the doubt as to its 
period arising out of the fact that it was not committed 
to writing until about the beginning of the eighth century. 
It is a war-poem, composed to celebrate the heroic deeds 
of Beowulf, who, hearing that the Danish king was har- 
assed by the attacks of a man-eating monster, set sail 
from Sweden to bring him succor. After many advent- 



THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 3 

ures, Beowulf slays the monster, returns home, there to 
lead a long life of good deeds crowned with honor. The 
poem consists of several thousand lines, and is allitera- 
tive ; that is, three or more accented words in each line 
begin with the same letter. Thus, an old poem has 
these lines : — 

" But in a Ma.y ;//orning on Afsdvern hills, 
I was -zt/eary of 'Z£/andering and laent me to rest 
Under a dro2Ld <^ank dy a <$'urn-side ; 
And as I /ay and /eaned, and /ooked on the waters, 
I j-lumbered in a j'leeping, it j-ounded so merry." 

All early English verse is of this alliterative form, — the 
end-rhyme of poetry as we know it having a much later 
origin. 

The earliest poem that may fairly be regarded as Eng- 
lish is the metrical paraphrase of the Pentateuch and the 
New Testament by Ccedinon, a monk of Whitby. Ac- 
cording to the legend, Caedmon was employed in menial 
service about the stables of the ancient monastery. Obey- 
ing what he believed to be the behests of a supernatural 
vision, Caedmon set himself to sing of " Creation, and the 
Beginning of All Things." Report of his verse coming to 
the ears of his superiors, they caused him to be educated. 
His translation was put into writing, and was read, memor- 
ized, and recited for a thousand years. It was composed 
probably in the seventh century^ but was not printed until 
the seventeenth. By general consent of critics, the most 
striking passages of this first English poem occur in the 
earlier part, where Caedmon sings of the rev^olt of the 
angels and the fall of man. These are the themes of 
Milton's great epic, and since Milton was well acquainted 
with the possessor of the Caedmon MS., we may fairly 
conjecture that tlie Puritan poet derived some inspiration 
from the w^ork of his predecessor. 



4 CATHC/IRT'S LITERARY READER 

As Caedmon was the first English poet, so Bcsda, or as 
he is generally called, the Venerable Bede, was the first 
writer of English prose. He also was a monk, and was 
born in the latter part of the seventh century. Bseda 
entered at an early age the monastery of Jarrow. He 
wrote voluminously, and mainly in Latin. He was, how- 
ever, the author of one English book, — a translation 
of the Gospel of Saint John. Upon this, according to 
the tradition, Baeda was engaged up to the hour of his 
death. This first English prose work is unfortunately 
lost. 

Two works of Old English, written later than the Nor- 
man invasion, deserve notice, because they show little 
evidence of the influence that the Norman-French was 
destined to have upon our language. These are Laya- 
mon's " Brut," and Ormin's ** Ormulum." Layamon was 
a priest who, about the year 1200, translated from the 
French a poem entitled " Brut." It purports to be a 
chronicle of British events from the time of the Roman 
invasion to the end of the seventh century. In the whole 
course of this metrical translation there are only about 
two-score words of Latin origin, and even of these several 
were in familiar use in English before the Norman Con- 
quest. The vocabulary of this translation is, accordingly, 
Saxon-English of a very pure type ; and the work serves 
to show at once how much and how little our language 
was capable of in strength, amplitude, and beauty before 
it had absorbed the French-Latin element. 

The " Ormulum," supposed to have been written, about 
the year 1225, by a monk named Ormin, is a rhythmic 
version of the Gospels. It is still freer than Layamon's 
work from words of Latin origin, and shows our language 
in a state of considerable advance over the English of any 
preceding writer. The following verses will give some 
notion of the nature of the vocabulary: — 



THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 5 

Icc^ hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh 
/ have wended^ into E?iglish 
Goddspelless hallghe lare 
GospeVs holy lore 

Affter thatt little witt tatt me 
After the little wit that )ne 
Mill Drihhtin hafethth lenedd. 
My Lord hath lefit. 

It remains to speak of the most extensive prose work 
of the centuries immediately preceding and following the 
Conquest. This work, known as " The Saxon Chronicle," 
was written, not by one, but by a succession of monastic 
authors. It was, as its name denotes, an historical record 
of events ; and as might be expected from the circum- 
stances of its authorship, has a peculiar value as showing 
the changing conditions of our language, as respects both 
vocabulary and structure, throughout the long period of 
time covered by it. It is the first history of any Teutonic 
people written in language of their own. 

From the date of the Norman invasion (1066) there was 
not, in two centuries and a half, any original English com- 
position that is worthy of mention. The speech of our 
forefathers was, during this period, undergoing its greatest 
change. The rigorous administration of the Conqueror suf- 
ficed to insure political order, but unity of intellectual life 
was wanting. The very strength, however, of the monarchy, 
together with the absence of religious differences, worked 
powerfully for the interfusion of the two elements of the 
population. Those of the English who desired to move 
among the educated and titled classes, and to associate 
with persons of authority or influence, found it necessary 
to acquire some knowledge of the French tongue. Little 

^ Ormin, in his spelling, doubles every consonant that has a short vowel 
before it, thus affording useful clews to pronunciation in his time. 
- turned 



6 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

by little, Norman words began to creep into every-day 
English speech. French was the language of the court, 
of parliament, and of the colleges ; and very soon a smat- 
tering of the new language became a badge of gentility. 
English had been in the main a spoken language, while 
the Norman-French was written extensively. Having to 
that extent the better chance of survival, it was only a 
question of time for a considerable element of French to 
become infused into the language of the common people. 
Old English inflections began to drop away, and to give 
place to the fixed and more rational forms of the French- 
Latin. Moreover, the common necessities of life demanded 
that the rulers and the ruled should have intelligible inter- 
course with one another when they met at church, at fairs, 
and in the market-place. The French wars were espe- 
cially influential in the same way, because they brought 
into very close relations the Saxon bowman and his Nor- 
man lord. In all these cases men were obliged to talk 
with each other. '* Every man turned himself into a walk- 
ing phrase-book." The Norman used English synonyms 
for his French words ; and whenever an Englishman spoke 
with a Norman, he sought in his turn French equivalents 
for the words of his vernacular. And so our language 
began to swarm with words that went in couples. The 
traces of this are to be seen in our present vocabulary, 
where we find such pairs of words as will and testament, 
aid and abet, pray and beseech, acknowledge and confess, 
and dissemble and cloak, most of which have come down 
to us in the set forms of expression of the church and 
the law of England.^ 

The English people held fast to their own speech, but 

1 In this way our language has come into possession of a wealth of 
synonyms such as no other tongue affords. These pairs of words, providing 
for the use of what Swift calls "proper words in proper places," enable us 
to give expression to the nicest shades of meaning. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 7 

they inevitably adopted many French words as time 
passed. This process went on for several hundred years ; 
and then, about the middle of the fourteenth century, it 
seemed as if the English language would not absorb any 
more French, 

The loss of Normandy in 1204 had given to the ruling 
class and the mass of the people of England a common 
political interest, and the whole tendency of religious 
teaching was to break down the barriers between them. 
Finally, by act of parliament (1362), both French and 
Latin were made to give place to English in the courts of 
law. 

The Latin contribution to our language, which resulted 
from the Conquest, imparted to it a new quality, and gave 
it wider powers of expression. So true is this that we 
may say that until this element was thoroughly transfused 
into the original English the writings of Shakespeare were 
impossible. This is still truer of Milton. His most pow- 
erful thoughts are written in lines the most telling words 
in which are almost always Latin. This may be illustrated 
by the following verses from " Lycidas " (see page 69) : 

"It was tha.t fata/ and perfidious bark, 
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark. 
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine." 

On the other hand, it is to be observed that whole sen- 
tences can be made containing only words of English 
origin, while it is impossible to do this with Latin or other 
foreign words. In the following passage from ** Macbeth " 
there is but one Romance word : — 

" Go bid thy 7Jiistress, when my drink is ready, 
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed ! — 
Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
The handle toward my hand ? Come ! let me clutch thee ! 
— I have thee not; and yet I see thee still." 



8 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

It is further to be noted that the names of classes of 
things and of generalizations are mainly of Latin origin; 
while the names of particular things are Anglo-Saxon. 
Thus color is a general term, and of Latin origin, while 
ird, yellow, black, white, gj'eeu, brown, are Saxon and par- 
ticular; nujuber is general, while ofie, two, tJiree, four, five, 
six, etc., are particular; move is general, while leap, spring, 
slip, slide, fall, walk, run, swim, ride, creep, crawl, fly, are 
particular. 

The first prose writer of the fourteenth century was Sir 
John Mandeville (i 300-1 372). He has been called the 
'' Father of English Prose," since, though not the first of 
the writers of prose in our language, he is the first whose 
work survives. He was educated to be a physician, but 
from early manhood seems to have been seized with a 
passion to see " cities of men, manners, climates, councils, 
governments." He wrote a narrative of his travels, first 
in Latin, then in French, and finally in English, in order 
that, as he said, " every man of my nation may understand 
it." Many copies of this work were circulated in manu- 
script, but it was not put into type until the year 1499, — 
that is, about twenty-five years after Caxton set up his 
printing-press in London. Mandeville's narrative tells of 
his journeyings from one end to the other of the world as 
then known ; and while it is probably authentic in general 
outline, the account is defaced by stories of marvelous 
scenes and preposterous adventures.^ 

^ Some notion of his style may be derived from the following passage in 
the introduction to his work : — 

" And for als moche as it is long tyme passed, that ther was no generalle Passage 
ne Vyage over the See ; and many Men desiren for to here speke of the holy Lond, 
and han thereof gret Solace and Comfort ; I John Maundevylle, Knyght, alle be it I 
be not worthi, that was born in Englond, in the Town of Seynt Albones, passed the 
See, in the Zeer of our Lord Jesu Crist MCCCXXII, in the Day of Seynt Michelle; 
and hidre to [hitherto] have heen longe tyme over the See, and have seyn and gon 
thorghe manye dyverse Londes, and many Provynces and Kingdomes and lies, and 
have passed thorghe Tartarye, Percye [Persia], Ermonye [Armenia] the litylle and 



THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 



The most influential writer of prose was Jo/m Wyclif 
( 1 324-1 384). His fame rests upon the translation of the 
Latin version of the Scriptures, in the making of which 
many hands were employed under his supervision. This 
work was completed only a short time before his death. 
The words and the style of Wyclif's translation were of 
permanent service in giving fixity to the best English 
usage of his day. This was the first translation of the 
whole Bible- into our language. ^ 



the grete ; thorghe Lybye, Caldee, and a gret partie of Ethiope ; thorghe Amazoyne 
[Amazonia], Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie; and thorghe out many othere 
lies, that ben abouten Inde ; where dwellen many dyverse Foikes, and of dyverse Ma- 
neres and Lawes, and of dyverse Schappes of men. Of whiche Londes and lies, I 
schalle speke more pleynly hereaftve." 

1 Comparing Wyclif's translation of the opening verses of St. Luke xxiv. 
with the latest English rendering, we may see some of the changes our lan- 
guage has undergone in a period of five hundred years. 



1380 

But in o day of the woke ful eerli thei 
camen to the grave, and broughten swete 
smelling spices that thei hadden arayed. 
And thei founden the stoon turnyd awey 
fro the grave. And thei geden in and 
foundun not the bodi of the Lord Jhesus. 
And it was don, the while thei weren 
astonyed in thought of this thing, lo twey 
men stodun bisidis hem in schynyng cloth. 
And whanne thei dredden and bowiden 
her semblaunt into erthe, thei seiden to 
hem, what seeken ye him that lyveth with 
deede men ? He is not here ; but he is 
risun : have ye minde how he spak to you 
whanne he was yit in Golilee, and seide, 
for it behoveth mannes sone to be bitakun 
into the hondis of synful men : and to be 
crucifyed: and the thridde day to rise 
agen ? And thei bithoughten on hise 
wordis, and thei geden agen fro the 
grave: and teelden alle these thingis to 
the ellevene and to alle othere. And there 
was Marye Maudeleyn and Jone and 
Marye of James, and othere wymmen 
that weren with hem, that seiden to 
Apostlis these thingis. 



1880 

But on the first day of the week, at 
early dawn, they came unto the tomb, 
bringing the spices which they had pre- 
pared. And they found the stone rolled 
away from the tomb. And they entered 
in, and found not the body of the Lord 
Jesus. And it came to pass, while they 
were perplexed thereabout, behold, two 
men stood by them in dazzling apparel : 
and as they were affrighted, and bowed 
down their faces to the earth, they said 
unto them, Why seek ye the living 
among the dead? He is not here, but 
is risen : remember how he spake unto 
you when he was yet in Galilee, saying 
that the Son of man must be delivered 
up into the hands of sinful men, and 
be crucified, and the third day rise 
again. And they remembered his words, 
and returned from the tomb, and told 
all these things to the eleven, and to 
all the rest. Now they were Mary 
Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the 
mother of James ; and the other women 
with them told these things unto the 
apostles. 




^,« meat. Chaucer's greatest work is 
^ the " Canterbury Tales," which is a 



10 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

The greatest figure in the poetry of the fourteenth century 
was Geoffrey Chancer (1328-1400). The accounts of his 
early life are not very full ; but we 
know that, owing perhaps to his 
handsome presence, as well as to 
his powers and attainments, he early 
found favor at court. He traveled 
extensively on the Continent, espe- 
cially in France and Italy, and had 
'^. a most varied experience as soldier, 

"^l^ \< > J',y' ambassador, and member of parlia- 

collection of stories in verse. The 
finest part of this work is the Prologue; the noblest story 
is the " Knightes Tale." The Prologue is the work of a 
great literary artist, drawing from nature with incompar- 
able force, sureness, and freedom. It is worthy of note 
that in 1362, when Chaucer was a very young man, the 
session of the House of Commons was first opened with 
a speech in English ; and thus he wrote at a time when 
our language was freshest and newest. He was closely 
familiar with Italian literature ; and it is undoubtedly due 
to this that in his hands English w^as proved to be rich in 
sweetness and harmony, no less than in force. Tennyson 
thus refers to him : — 

" Dan^ Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still." 

The lesser poets of this period were William Langlande 
(1332-1400), who used the alliterative form, and whose 

^ a poetical title of honor = master 



THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE ii 

principal work was "The Vision of Piers the Plowman; " 
y^?/^;/ Gower (133 5-1408), author of a poem entitled " The 
Lover's Confession; " and JoJm Barbo?cr (13 16-1396), a 
Scottish poet, whose best-remembered work is entitled 
'* The Bruce." In the fourteenth century the English lan- 
guage attained a high degree of finish, force, and freedom, 
though the sentences of its prose writers are long and 
awkward. 

Civil wars convulsed England in the fifteenth century, 
and the cultivation of letters met little encouragement. 
Accordingly we find in this period no great work in prose 
or verse. But if no new literature appeared, that which 
had already been produced took deeper root and spread 
wider its branches, mainly through the endeavors of Wil- 
liam Caxton (1412-IZ192), the ''Father of the English 
Press," as he has been called. He began to print books 
in London in the year 1474. This man, whose name has 
very great significance in the history of our literature, 
had long been a writer when he took up the business of 
printing. He was not only author and printer, but com- 
positor, proof-reader, binder, and publisher as well. Cax- 
ton's press produced about fifty important works, nearly 
all of them in English. A number of his publications 
were translations, made by Caxton himself, of notable for- 
eign books. He printed the poems of Chaucer and of 
Gower, and the " History of King Arthur," by Sir Thomas 
Malory. From the last-named work Tennyson has drawn 
the stories which form the groundwork of his ** Idylls of 
the King." .In the preface to his translation of the ^Eneid 
of Virgil (published in 1490), Caxton says that he can not 
understand old books that were written when he was a 
boy ; that " the olde Englysshe is more lykc to dutcJie 
than englysshe," and that " our langage now used varyeth 
ferre from that whiche was used and spoken when I was 
borne." 



12 



CATHCy^RTS LITERARY READER 



The sixteenth century was remarkable for its production 
of anonymous ballads, which were widely circulated among 
the common people. "King Lear" and " The Babes in 
Wood " are the best known of these popular pieces. The 
first half of this century witnessed also the dawn of a new 
era in poetry, marked by the appearance of Sir TJioinas 
Wyatt ( 1 503-1 542) and of the Earl of Surrey (15 17- 
1547). Both these writers had passed many years in 
Italy. They had learned, like Chaucer, to appreciate the 
greatness of Italian literature, and they have been called 
*' the first reformers of English meter and style." Surrey 
translated part of Virgil in blank verse, and he shares 
with Wyatt the credit of introducing the sonnet into our 
literature, 

A generation later than these appeared Edmund Spenser 
(1552- 1 599), the ''poet's poet," who, though the prede- 
cessor of Shakespeare by but a 
few years, must yet be reckoned, 
chiefly on account of his archa- 
isms of style and the nature of his 
subjects, as belonging to an earlier 
epoch. He was the study of Shake- 
speare, and the poetical master of 
Cowley and of Milton. Spenser's 
earliest work was a set of twelve 
pastoral poems entitled "The Shep- 
heard's Calendar; " but his fame 
rests on his great allegory of " The 
Faerie Queene." The propagation of the several moral 
virtues is the professed object of this poem. It is written 
in a stanza of nine lines, since known as the Spenserian 
stanza. This is so skillfully constructed, and so well 
adapted to our language, that it is much used by our 
later poets. Spenser is very fond of alliteration. Thus 
he has, — 




THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 13 

" What man that sees the ever- whirling wheele " — 
" To thee, O greatest goddesse, onely great " — 
" Derived by due descent " — 

and similar examples may be found in almost every stanza 
of the six books into which the poem is divided. 

Two prose writers of this time deserve notice. Sir 
TJiomas More (1480-1535) wrote in a plain, strong, nerv- 
ous style, " The Life and Reign of Edward V." This is 
the first work deserving the name of history that appeared 
in our language, and is an admirable example of classic 
English prose. Hallam speaks of the language of this 
work as '' pure and perspicuous, well-chosen, without vul- 
garisms, and without pedantry." The work, however, which 
comes first to mind at the mention of More's name is his 
" Utopia," — a description, as its title denotes, of the land 
of Nowhere. This favored country is a republic, the idea 
of which More borrowed from Plato, and in it there are 
no taverns, no fashions, no wars, and no lawyers. 

William Tyndale ii^'^^-i ^16) is famous for his trans- 
lation of the New Testament and of parts of the Old. His 
English is remarkably pure and vigorous. Very few of the 
words used in his translation have become obsolete, and 
the work is therefore a landmark in the history of our 
language. 

This brief sketch of the Beginnings of English Litera- 
ture brings us to a consideration of the literature of the 
Elizabethan reign. Certain conditions and influences of 
the last quarter of the sixteenth century and the first 
years of the seventeenth strongly disposed English letters 
to the dramatic form of expression, as will presently ap- 
pear. For several centuries theatrical representation had 
been rude and spectacular. It had consisted chiefly of 
exhibitions of the martyrdoms of saints, and of miracle- 



14 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

plays, in the successive scenes of which the events of 
scripture and of prophecy, beginning with the creation, 
and ending with the destruction of the world, were shown 
forth. These spectacles grew up under monastic patron- 
age, being performed sometimes within the enclosures of 
monasteries, and sometimes in the churches themselves. 
As the English people increased in numbers, and im- 
proved in the arts of life, these religious plays were pro- 
duced in greater pomp and greater excellence of form. 

Then, as time passed, something new and different was 
demanded by the popular taste, and by gradual steps the 
so-called "moral plays" supplanted those of a religious 
character. In the new drama virtues and vices usurped the 
places thitherto held by angels and demons, and before 
long even these ceased to be offered as abstractions, — 
personified qualities yielding room to the proper persons 
of the drama. Next came translations of the ancient trage- 
dies and comedies; then crude plays founded on Italian 
romance. Companies of strolling players traveled from 
place to place, performing in town-halls or in such other 
buildings as could give accommodation to their audiences. 

The first regular public theater in England was estab- 
lished just outside of the city limits of London in the 
year 1575. The number of the players and the pros- 
perity of the playhouse steadil}^ increased. Among the 
signatures to a memorial addressed to the Queen's Council 
a few years later by the actors of the *' Blackfriars Play- 
house " is the name of William Shakespeare. 



THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 15 



II 

THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 

SHAKESPEARE - BACON 

I LOVE the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 

The songs of Spenser's golden days, 

Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. 

Whittier 

'IT 7HAT is called the " Elizabethan literature " is that 
^^ body of classic English prose and verse which, 
making its appearance in the latter half of the reign of 
Elizabeth, continued through that of James and that of 
his son. 

Before the time of Shakespeare the language spoken in 
England had been subject to a succession of modifica- 
tions, both in internal structure and by accretions from 
without, so radical that the speech of Shakespeare would 
scarce have been intelligible to the Englishman of Chau- 
cer's day. Yet the Elizabethan English is the tongue that 
we speak; and we may therefore say that our language 
previous to about the middle of the sixteenth century was 
making, but not made, — was in a formative condition. 
The foregoing chapter has given in outline some account 
of this earlier English, and of the causes which led to the 
successive steps in the development of our language. 

It is largely due to the great literary figures of the Eliz- 
abethan time that the mold of our speech is substan- 
tially fixed. They gave to us a standard for guidance, and 
have themselves become classics for later generations to 



l6 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

appeal to. Bacon wrote philosophy in Latin, doubting of 
the permanence of what he left in English ; for he knew 
the changes the vernacular had suffered, and could not 
foresee that further changes would not make his own 
vocabulary obsolete. 

It is not every generation that affords us even one great 
poet or great philosopher, and critics have loved to spec- 
ulate upon the causes that produced in a single age such 
figures as those of Shakespeare, Jonson, Drayton, Bacon, 
Hooker, and Donne. The invention of printing, the re- 
vival of letters, the rise of the middle class, the great 
voyages of discovery, — all these seemed to prefigure a 
great intellectual uprising. Conflict of old with new must 
ever sharpen the minds of men and broaden the view. 

Nor had there been lacking precursors of this literary 
outbreak. Spenser and Marlowe were Shakespeare's im- 
mediate predecessors. The age of Elizabeth was especially 
one of change. The imaginations of men w^ere inflamed 
by the voyages of Drake and Raleigh, so that even the 
commoner sort took on some boldness of act and loftiness 
of thought. It was an age of luxury in dress, equipage, 
and manners ; court pageants, masques, and revels were 
so frequent as to become almost a commonplace. Men 
were then surrounded, as Lamb says, by " visible poetry." 
Wealthy nobles were generous patrons of letters. Eliza- 
beth, herself no mean scholar, smiled approval upon the 
stage, and Shakespeare began his great dramatic creations. 
There was then no reading public, no newspaper press or 
periodical literature. Only by means of the drama could 
authorship gain the ear of the public. It was but natural, 
therefore, that literature should adapt itself to the stage, 
which afforded to the poet the only means of livelihood, 
apart from patronage, that in that day he could hope for. 

The striking characteristics of the Elizabethan litera- 
ture seem to be these : it was creative, imaginative ; great 



THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 1 7 

breadth of view and of thought were in it ; and it was 
intensely human, real, natural. There was, as we have 
seen, abundant reason in the circumstances of the time 
why its writers should exercise creative power, though 
nothing that can account for their happy possession of 
it. They lived in an imaginative age, and in both poet 
and philosopher imagination gave insight into spiritual 
truths, and supplied also the power of inventing, devis- 
ing, and shaping; that is, intellectual creativeness. This 
is seen equally in the sprightliest fancies of Shakespeare, 
the deepest speculations of Bacon, or the loftiest flights 
of Milton, who came after them. In a large way, Milton's 
great epic. Bacon's whole method, and any one of Shake- 
speare's plays, is a creation. 

Change and vicissitude gave large scope to men's 
minds. New lands were opening to the colonist; false 
philosophy was losing its hold on the higher intellects ; 
" creation widened in man's view." The age called for 
men of insight and foresight, men who could analyze and 
combine. 

Accordingly, the thinking of Bacon and of Shakespeare 
was never one-sided, — it was with the whole mind, not with 
one or with a few faculties of it. The sagest philosophizing 
of Bacon is continually lighted up with fanciful touches and 
subtile conceits. Raleigh could command by sea or land, 
could write charming verse, found a colony, hold his own 
in parliament, or pen grave history. Bacon was statesman 
and jurist as well as philosopher; and that Shakespeare's 
mind had as many facets as a diamond, is shown by the 
endeavor of the curious to make him out, from his own 
writings, a member, at one time or another, of each of 
the learned professions, and a holder of opposite creeds in 
religion. He was, indeed, " a universal, round man." 

This literature dealt with men as they are, fools and 
wise, bad and good, high and low. The drama in whicii 



l8 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

they were pictured forth, appealed to the thoughts and 
passions of natural flesh-and-blood hearers. In the whole 
gamut of Shakespeare's music there is not an untruthful 
note; from young Gobbo to Portia, from Macbeth to the 
drunken Porter, every figure is human, every action and 
word proper to its place. This is because Shakespeare's 
mind was free from that exaggeration which is a necessary 
element of caricature. His characters do not act upon 
one unvarying rule of conduct, but, as always happens in 
real life, are swayed from this, as the drama progresses, 
by a mixture of motives and impulses, by change of situ- 
ation, and by mere incident. This it is that gives the 
element of essential truth to Shakespeare's presentations, 
which are so varied, exhibiting the whole range of hu- 
man passions, that they appeal to every phase of moral 
sentiment. 

So, also. Bacon's ambition in publishing his '' Essays " 
was, as he wrote in his preface to that work, to bring the 
matters he treated of "home to men's minds and bosoms." 
Wise saws and instances modern and ancient brighten 
every page of these counsels of his. 

In a word, the Elizabethan literature depicts or ideal- 
izes human nature in its virtues, vices, passions, weak- 
nesses, and strength; in its hopes, fears, thoughts, and 
fancies. It holds the mirror up to Nature, and shows to 
us Nature's image faithfully reflected in it. It is, after 
the brief Old-English Introduction, the first and best 
chapter in the unfinished volume of our literature. 



SHAKESPEARE I9 

SHAKESPEARE 

1564-1616 

William Shakespeare, dramatist and poet, was born at Stratford-on- 
Avon, England, in April, 1564. Of his early life almost nothing is known. 
It is believed that he was a student in the free school at Stratford, and that 




in his youth he assisted his father in the latter's business, which was that of 
a wool-dealer and glover. That he formally entered upon any definite call- 
ing, we have no proof ; but critics have found evidence in his writings of his 
familiarity with various professions : Malone, one of his acutest commenta- 
tors, firmly insisted that Shakespeare was a lawyer's clerk. At the age of 



20 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior. Of this 
union only a vague report that it proved uncongenial has come down to us. 
In 1586 or 1587 Shakespeare seems to have gone to London, and two years 
later appears as one of the proprietors of the Blackfriars Theatre. In the 
few years next following he became known as a playwright, and in 1593 he 
published his first poem, "Venus and Adonis." The dates of publication 
of his plays are not settled beyond doubt, but the best authorities place 
*• Henry VI." first, and "The Tempest" last, all included between 1589 and 
161 1. Shakespeare was an actor as well as a writer of plays, and remained 
on the stage certainly as late as 1603. Two years later he bought a hand- 
some house at Stratford, and lived therein, enjoying the friendship and re- 
spect of his neighbors, till his death in 1616. 

Meager as is the foregoing sketch, it yet embodies, with a few trifling 
exceptions, all the known facts as to Shakespeare's life. A mist seems to 
have settled over " the most illustrious of the sons of man," almost wholly 
hiding his personality from curious and admiring posterit)'. Of many of 
his contemporary writers, and of some who preceded him, comparatively 
full particulars have come down to us : Edmund Spenser stands out con- 
spicuous among the bright lights of the Elizabethan age ; the genial face 
and the personal habits of " rare Ben Jonson " are almost familiar to us ; 
and even of Chaucer, the father of English literature, we possess a reason- 
ably distinct portraiture : but Shakespeare, t/ic vian, is lost to us in the dark- 
ness of the past. 

The name of Shakespeare is so pre-eminently famous, standing out in 
the firmament of literature " like the moon among the lesser stars," that 
no attempt to convey an idea of his greatness seems to be necessary here. 
We content ourselves, therefore, with quoting the opinions of a few of those 
who have been worthy to judge him. 

Dr. Samuel Johnson says : " The stream of time, which is continually 
washing the dissolvable fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the 
adamant of Shakespeare." 

Thomas De Quincey says : " In the gravest sense it may be affirmed of 
Shakespeare that he is among the modern luxuries of life; it was his pre- 
rogative to have thought more finely and more extensively than all other 
poets combined." 

Lord Jeffrey says ; "More full of wisdom and ridicule and sagacity than all 
the moralists that ever existed, he is more wild, airy, and inventive, and more 
pathetic and fantastic than all the poets of all regions and ages of the world." 

Lord Macaulay pronounced Shakespeare " the greatest poet that ever 
lived," and esteemed " Othello," the play from which our first selection is 
taken, as " perhaps the greatest work in the world." 

Thomas Carlyle bears this characteristic testimony •■ " Of this Shakespeare 
of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes hears a little idolatrous! y 
expressed is, in fact, the right one ; I think the best judgment is slowly point- 
ing to the conclusion that Shakespeare is the chief of all poets hitherto, the 



SHAKESPEARE 21 

greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has left record of himself in 
the way of literature. On the whole, I know not such a power of vision, such 
a faculty of thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other man — 
such a calmness of depth, placid, joyous strength, all things imaged in that 
great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil, unfathomable sea ! " 



OTHELLO'S SPEECH TO THE SENATE 

Most potent, grav^e, and reverend signiors, 

My very noble and approved good masters, — 

That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, 

It is most true ; true, I have married her ; 

The very head and front of my offending 

Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in speech. 

And little blessed with the set phrase of peace ; 

For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith. 

Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used 

Their dearest action in the tented field ; 

And little of this great world can I speak. 

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle ; 

And therefore little shall I grace my cause 

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, 

I will a round unvarnished tale deliver 

Of my whole course of love ; what drugs, what charms. 

What conjuration, and what mighty magic 

(For such proceeding I am charged withal ^), 

I won his daughter with. . . . 

Her father loved me ; oft invited me ; 

Still questioned me the story of my life 

From year to year ; the battles, sieges, fortunes 

That I have passed. 

I ran it through, even from my boyish days 

To the very moment that he bade me tell it. 

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, 

1 here a preposition = 7o/th 



22 CATHC/1RTS LITERARY READER 

Of moving accidents by flood and field, 

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach ; 

Of being taken by the insolent foe, 

And sold to slavery ; of my redemption thence. 

And portance ^ in my travel's history ; 

Wherein of antres ^ vast, and deserts idle. 

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, 

It was my hint to speak ; — such was the process ; — 

And of the cannibals that each other eat — 

The anthropophagi, and men whose heads 

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear. 

Would Desdemona seriously incline : 

But still the house affairs would draw her thence ; 

Which ever as she could with haste despatch, 

She 'd come again, and with a greedy ear 

Devour up my discourse : which I observing, 

Took once a pliant hour, and found good means 

To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart, 

That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 

Whereof by parcels she had something heard. 

But not intentively.^ I did consent ; 

And often did beguile her of her tears 

When I did speak of some distressful stroke 

That my youth suffered. My story being done. 

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs : 

She swore — In faith, 't was strange, 't was passing strange ; 

'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful : 

She wished she had not heard it ; yet she wished 

That Heaven had made her such a man : she thanked me ; 

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 

I should but teach him how to tell my story, 

And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I spake : 

She loved me for the dangers I had passed ; 

And I loved her, that she did pity them. 

This only is the witchcraft I have used. 

1 demeanor, conduct 2 caverns ^ intently, closely 



SHAKESPEARE 23 

THE WINNING OF JULIET 1 

Juliet. Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face : 
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek 
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. 
Fain would I dwell on form ; fain, fain deny 
What I have spoke : but farewell comphment ! 
FJost thou love me ? I know thou wilt say, Ay : 
And I will take thy word ; yet, if thou swear'st, 
Thou mayst prove false ; at lovers' perjuries, 
They say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, 
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully : 
Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, 
I '11 frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, 
So thou wilt woo ; but else, not for the world. 
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond ; 
And therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light. 
But trust me, gentleman, I '11 prove more true 
Than those that have more cunning to be strange. 
I should have been more strange, I must confess. 
But that thou overheard'st, ere I was 'ware, 
My true love's passion : therefore pardon me ; 
And not impute this yielding to light love. 
Which the dark night hath so discovered. 

Romeo. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear. 
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops — 

Juliet. O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon. 
That monthly changes in her circled orb. 
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. 

Romeo. What shall I swear by? 

Juliet. Do not swear at all, 

Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, 



1 An extract from the love scene in the garden, in the play of " Romeo and 
Juliet." Romeo, concealed in the garden at night, is discovered by Juliet 
listening to her declaration of love for him 



4 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Which is the god of my idolatry, 
And I '11 believe thee. 

Romeo. If my heart's dear love — 

Juliet. Well, do not swear : although 1 joy in thee, 
I have no joy of this contract to-night ; 
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden : 
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be 
Ere one can say. It lightens. Sweet, good-night ! 
This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, 
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. 
Good-night, good-night ! as sweet repose and rest 
Come to thy heart, as that within my breast ! 

Romeo. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? 

Juliet. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night? 

Romeo. The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine. 

Juliet. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it : 
And yet I would it were to give again. 

Romeo. Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love? 

Juliet. But to be frank, and give it thee again. 
And yet I wish but for the thing I have : 
My bounty is as boundless as the sea. 
My love as deep ; the more I give to thee, 
The more I have, for both are infinite. 



WOLSEY ON THE VICISSITUDES OF LIFE 

Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness. 
This is the state of man ; to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him ; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ; 



1 Cardinal Wolsey held high offices of state under King Henry VIII. 
Being suddenly deprived of all his honors by the king, Shakespeare rep- 
resents him as uttering this speech. 



SHAKESPEARE 25 

And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a- ripening, — nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many summers in a sea of glory ; 
But far beyond my depth ; my high-blown pride 
At length broke under me ; and now has left me. 
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye ; 
I feel my heart new opened : O, how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors ! 
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin. 
More pangs and fears, than wars or women have : 
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again. 



HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY 

To BE, or not to be, — that is the question : — 

Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ; 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,^ 

And, by opposing, end them ? — To die, — to sleep, — 

No more ; — and, by a sleep, to say we end 

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to, — 't is a consummation 

Devoutly to be wished. To die ; — to sleep ; — 

To sleep ! perchance to dream ; — ay, there 's the rub : 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,^ 

1 to fake ■ ■ . troubles ; what is the rhetorical fault ? - care, trouble 



26 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

Must give us pause ; there 's the respect 

That makes calamity of so long life : 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 

The insolence of office, and the spurns 

That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 

When he himself might his quietus make 

With a bare bodkin ? Who would fardels ^ bear. 

To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 

But that the dread of something after death — 

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn "^ 

No traveler returns — puzzles the will. 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have 

Than fly to others that we know not of? 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all. 

And thus the native hue of resolution 

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 

And enterprises of great pith and moment. 

With this regard, their currents turn awry. 

And lose the name of action. 



POLONIUS'S ADVICE TO HIS SON 

Give thy thoughts no tongue, 
Nor any unproportioned thought his^ act. 
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. 
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried. 
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel ; 
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware 
Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in, 

1 burdens ^ for its, which was seldom used in Shakespeare's time 

- limits, boundary 



SHAKESPEARE 2y 

Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee. 

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice : 

Take each man's censure/ but reserve thy judgment. 

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 

But not expressed in fancy ; rich, not gaudy, 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man ; 

And they in France, of the best rank and station, 

Are most select and generous, chief in that. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be : 

For loan oft loses both itself and friend. 

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 

This above all, — to thine own self be true ; 

And it must follow, as the night the day. 

Thou canst not then be false to any man. 

Farewell ; my blessing season this in thee. 



THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN 

All the world 's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players : 
They have their exits and their entrances ; 
And one man in his time plays many parts. 
His acts being seven ages. At first, the Infant, 
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
And then, the whining School-boy, with his satchel, 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school. And then, the Lover, 
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad 
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a Soldier ; 
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, 
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel. 
Seeking the bubble reputation 
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the Justice, 



28 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

In fair round belly with good capon lined, 
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern instances ; 
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 
Into the lean and slippered Pantaloon, 
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side ; 
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 
For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice, 
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 
That ends this strange eventful history, 
Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 



MERCY 



The quality of Mercy is not strained ; 

It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven. 

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed ; 

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 

'T is mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 

The throned monarch better than his crown. 

His scepter shows the force of temporal power. 

The attribute to awe and majesty, 

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; 

But Mercy is above this sceptered sway, — 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings. 

It is an attribute to God himself; 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's 

AVhen mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this, — 

That, in the course of justice, none of us 

Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy ; 

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 

The deeds of mercy. 



St/AKESPEARE 29 



ENGLAND 



This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, 

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 

This other Eden, demi-paradise ; 

This fortress, built by Nature for herself, 

Against infection and the hand of war ; 

This happy breed of men, this little world ; 

This precious stone set in the silver sea, 

Which serves it in the office of a wall, 

Or as a moat defensive to a house, 

Against the envy of less happier lands, 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. 



THE MIND 

For 't is the mind that makes the body rich : 
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds. 
So honor peereth in the meanest habit. 
What ! is the jay more precious than the lark. 
Because his feathers are more beautiful? 
Or is the adder better than the eel. 
Because his painted skin contents the eyes? 
O no, good Kate : neither art thou the worse 
For this poor furniture and mean array. 



PERFECTION 

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 

To throw a perfume on the violet. 

To smooth the ice, or add another hue 

Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light 

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish. 

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 



30 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

INGRATITUDE REBUKED 

But, O, 
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop ? thou cruel, 
• Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature ! 

Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels, 

That knew'st the very bottom of my soul, 

That almost mightst have coined me into gold 

Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use — 

May it be possible that foreign hire 

Could out of thee extract one spark of evil 

That might annoy my finger ? 'T is so strange 

That, though the truth of it stands off as gross 

As black from white, my eye will scarcely see it. 

Treason and murder ever kept together, 

xAs two yoke- devils sworn to cither's purpose. 

Working so grossly in a natural cause, 

That admiration did not whoop at them : 

But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in 

Wonder to wait on treason and on murder : 

And whatsoever cunning fiend it was 

That wrought upon thee so preposterously 

Gave thee no instance ^ why thou shouldst do treason. 

Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. 

If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus 

Should with his lion gait walk the whole world 

He might return to vasty Tartar back. 

And tell the legions, " I can never win 

A soul so easy as that Englishman's." 

O, how hast thou with jealousy ^ infected 

The sweetness of affiance ^ ! Show men dutiful ? 

Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned ? 

Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family? 

Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious? 

1 reason ^ suspicious vigilance ^ confidence, trust 



SHAKESPEARE 

Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet, . 
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger, 
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, 
Garnished and decked with modest complement,' 
Not working wath the eye without the ear, 
And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither? 
Such and so finely bolted ^ didst thou seem. 
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot 
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued ^ 
With some suspicion. I will w^eep for thee ; 
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like 
Another Fall of Man. 



FIVE SONNETS 4 
XVIII. Eternal Lines 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 
Thou art more lovely and more temperate : 
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 
And summer's lease hath all too short a date : 
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines. 
And often is his gold complexion dimmed : 
And every fair from fair sometime declines. 
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed. 
But thy eternal summer shall not fade 
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest ; ^ 
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, 
When in eternal lines to time thou growest. 
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see. 
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 



1 completeness "^ sifted ^ endowed 

* See The Sonnef, p. 508. ° ownest 



32 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

LXV. Time and Love 

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, 
But sad Mortality o'ersways their power : 
How with this rage shall Beauty hold a plea, 
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? 
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out 
Against the wreckful siege of battering days, 
When rocks impregnable are not so stout. 
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? 
O fearful meditation ! where, alack ! 
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? 
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back ? 
Or who his spoil ^ of Beauty can forbid ? 

O, none ; unless this miracle have might ; — 
That in black ink my love may still shine bright. 



XCI. An Appraisement 

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill. 
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force, 
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill, 
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse ; 
And every humor hath his adjacent pleasure. 
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest : 
But these particulars are not my measure ; 
All these I better in one general best. 
Thy love is better than high birth to me. 
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost. 
Of more delight than hawks or horses be ; 
And, having thee, of all men's pride I boast : 
Wretched in this alone, — that thou mayst take 
All this away, and me most wretched make. 

1 spoiling, destruction 



SHAKESPEARE 33 

CXVl. True Love 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 

Admit impediments. Love is not love 

Which alters when it alteration finds, 

Or bends with the remover to remove : 

O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 

It is the star to every wandering bark, 

Whose worth 's unknown, although his height be taken. 

Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 

Within his bending sickle's compass come; 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks. 

But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom. 

If this be error and upon me proved, 

I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 



CXLVI. Soul and Body 

Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth. 
Fooled by those rebel powers that thee array, 
Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth. 
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? 
Why so large cost, having so short a lease, 
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? 
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess. 
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? 
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss. 
And let that pine to aggravate ^ thy store ; 
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ; 
Within be fed, without be rich no more : 

So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men ; 

And, death once dead, there 's no more dying then. 

1 increase 
3 



34 



CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 



BEN JONSON 

1574-1637 

Benjamin Jonson, as he was christened, — Ben Jonson, as he preferred to 
call himself, and as all the world knows him, — was born of somewhat humble 
parentage at Westminster in the year 1574. Of his early life the outline is 




faint and the details are meager ; but we know that at the expense of friends 
of his deceased father, who had been a clergyman, he studied at Westminster 
School, and for a brief time at Cambridge University ; that being then com- 
pelled to work at his stepfather's trade, that of a bricklayer, and finding this 
occupation one that, as he himself says, he " could not endure," he left it to 



JONSON 35 

enlist in the army, then serving in Flanders, preferring the lot of a private 
soldier to an employment so little suited either to his attainments or to his 
temperament. Though Jonson^istinguished himself for bravery in the field, 
this does not appear to have advanced his personal fortunes. Having by 
some means secured a discharge from military service, he next, according to 
the generally received account, took some minor parts upon the London 
stage, and was also engaged in correcting, recasting, and writing plays, 
though yet under age. What success attended upon these labors does not 
appear, but it is certain that Jonson's progress was interrupted by the event 
of a duel in which he became involved, and which resulted in the killing of 
his opponent. Charged with murder and imprisoned, he was eventually 
released, though under what circumstances has never been explained. 

In 1596, at the age of twenty-two, Jonson produced his first ambitious 
dramatic composition, " Every Man in His Humor." This play, in its 
original form, was not favorably received, but being amended and partly 
rewritten, the popular verdict was reversed when, three years later, and 
partly by the influence and help of Shakespeare, it was again put before 
the public. This drama and *' The Alchemist " are the only plays of Jon- 
son's which have kept the stage. Other dramas of notable merit were 
" Sejanus," "Catiline," and "Volpone;" and besides these he put forth 
from time to time very many epigrams, lyrics, and minor poems. James I. 
favored and distinguished the poet in many ways, — he was made poet 
laureate in 1619, and was employed by the court and by the city of London 
in little dramatic schemes for pageants, revels, farces, and the like. His 
various " masques," as he called them, prepared for these entertainments, 
exhibit the finest fancy and originality. Jonson was the inventor of these 
court amusements throughout the reign of James, and at intervals during 
the reign of Charles, who, like his predecessor, was Jonson's generous patron. 
To the very close of his life the poet's literary activity was great. One of 
his last productions, a pastoral poem entitled "The Sad Shepherd," has a 
well-deserved reputation for the simplicity and great beauty of its diction. 

Jonson's declining days were clouded with misfortune. He was stricken 
with paralysis, and influential enemies at court were able to delay and 
partly to cut off his salary as laureate. Clamorous creditors pursued the 
old poet, and to satisfy these he was compelled to write begging letters to 
many friends and former patrons. Death released him from these ills on 
the 6th of August, 1637. A pavement-stone over his grave in Westminster 
Abbey bears the brief legend : " O Rare Ben Jonson ! " 

General consent accords to Ben Jonson the second place among the 
dramatists of his time. That as a poet also he was second, some judgments 
have denied. To say that he stands next to Shakespeare seems superlative 
praise when we consider how much greater was the latter than any of his 
contemporaries ; but the originality, versatility, and amount of his work, and 
his vast and solid learning, entitle Jonson to the distinction. A suggestive 
comparison between Jonson and Shakespeare is aff"orded in the oft-quoted 



36 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

account of Fuller; "Many were the wit-contests betwixt him (Shake- 
speare] and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld like a Spanish great galleon 
and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson (like the former) was built far 
higher in learning ; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare (like 
the latter) lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, and 
take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." 
These " wit-contests " were mostly enacted at the Mermaid Tavern, where 
Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Donne, and other shining lights in the literary 
heavens of that day were wont to get together. The mention of Jonson's 
name at once calls up in the mind that of Shakespeare, since it is to Jonson 
that we owe much of the little that we know, or have from scanty relics 
been able to infer, of the personality of the Master Dramatist. 

Ben Jonson was loud and self-assertive, hot-blooded, and often irritable ; 
but that he was, as some have declared, arrogant, envious, and unlovable, 
can hardly be credited when we reflect that he was the intimate companion 
of the contemporary poets, and when we read and read again such glowing 
and unstinted tributes as are found in his lines on Drayton and on Shakes- 
peare, which are given in pages following. What finer apostrophe can liter- 
ature show than that of these lines to the memory of the poet he has just 
called " Master ; " — 

" Triumph, my Britain ! Thou hast one to show 
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. 
He was not of an age, but for all time ! " 



ON SHAKESPEARE 

[To the Memory of my Beloved Master, William Shakespeare, and What he 

hath Left us.] 

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name 
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ; 
While I confess thy writings to be such 
As neither man nor muse can praise too much. 
'T is true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways 
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise ; 
For silliest ignorance on these may light, 
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right ; 
Or bhnd affection, which doth ne'er advance 
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ; 



JONSON 37 

Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, 

And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise. . . . 

But thou art proof against them, and, indeed, 

Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need. 

I therefore will begin : Soul of the age 1 

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage ! 

My Shakespeare, rise ! I will not lodge thee by 

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie 

A little further off, to make thee room : 

Thou art a monument without a tomb, 

And art alive still, while thy book doth live, 

And we have wits to read, and praise to give. 

That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses, 

I mean with great but disproportioned muses : 

For, if I thought my judgment were of years,^ 

I should commit ^ thee surely with thy peers,^ 

And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine. 

Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line. 

And, though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, 

From thence ^ to honor thee I will not seek 

For names, but call forth thund'ring Eschylus, 

Euripides, and Sophocles to us, 

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, 

To live again, to hear thy buskin tread 

And shake a stage : or when thy socks were on, 

Leave thee alone for the comparison 

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome 

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. 

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show 

To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. 

He was not of an age, but for all time ! 

And all the muses still were in their prime 

When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm 

Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm ! 

1 short-lived ^ contemporaries 

2 compare * z. e. from among modern writers 



38 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

Nature herself was proud of his designs, 

And joyed to wear the dressing of his hnes ! 

Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, 

As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. 

The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, 

Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please ; 

But antiquated and deserted lie, 

As they were not of Nature's family. 

Yet must I not give Nature all ; thy art. 

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. 

For though the poet's matter nature be, 

His art doth give the fashion : and, that he 

Who casts ' to write a living line, must sweat, 

(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat 

Upon the muse's anvil ; turn the same. 

And himself with it, that he thinks to frame ; 

Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn ; 

For a good poet 's made, as well as born. 

And such wert thou ! Look how the father's face 

Lives in his issue ; even so the race 

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 

In his well-torned ^ and true-filed lines ; 

In each of which he seems to shake a lance. 

As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. 

Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were 

To see thee in our water yet appear, 

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames 

That so did take Eliza and our James ! 

But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere ^ 

Advanced, and made a constellation there ! 

Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage, 

Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage, 

Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night. 

And despairs day, but for thy volume's light. 

1 casts about, attempts 2 well-turned ^ /^ ^_ i^ the heavens 



JONSON 39 



ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE 

This figure that thou here seest put, 
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut, 
Wherein the graver had a strife 
With Nature, to outdo the life : 
O could he but have drawn his wit 
As well in brass as he has hit 
His face, the print would then surpass 
All that was ever writ in brass : 
But since he can not, reader, look 
Not on his picture, but his book. 



• HYMN TO DIANA 

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, 

Now the sun is laid to sleep. 
Seated in thy silver chair 

State in wonted manner keep : 
Hesperus entreats thy light. 
Goddess excellently bright. 

Earth, let not thy envious shade 

Dare itself to interpose ; 
Cynthia's shining orb w^as made 

Heaven to clear when day did close 
Bless us then with wished sight. 
Goddess excellently bright. 

Lay thy bow of pearl apart 

And thy crystal-shining quiver ; 
Give unto the flying hart 

Space to breathe, how short soever : 
Thou that mak'st a day of night, 
Goddess excellently bright ! 



40 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

TWO EPITAPHS 
I. On the Countess of Pembroke 

Underneath this sable hearse ^ 
Lies the subject of all verse, 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother ; 
Death ! ere thou hast slain another, 
Learn'd and fair and good as she, 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

II. On Michael Drayton 

Do, pious marble, let thy readers know 

What they, and what their children owe 

To Drayton's name ; whose sacred dust 

We recommend unto thy trust. 

Protect his memory, and preserve his story ; 

Remain a lasting monument of his glory. 

x\nd when thy ruins shall disclaim 

To be the treasurer of his name ; 

His name, that can not die, shall be 

An everlasting monument to thee. 



THE NOBLE NATURE 

It is not growing hke a tree 

In bulk, doth make man better be ; 

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere : 
A lily of a day 
Is fairer far in May, 
Although it fall and die that night — 
It was the plant and flower of light. 

In small proportions we just beauties see ; 

And in short measures life may perfect be. 

1 a black canopj^, beneath wKxch the coffin was placed 



BACON 



41 



BACON 

1561-1626 

The calendar of the life of Francis Bacon can be set down in small com- 
pass. He was born in London in 1561, son to Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord 
Keeper of the Seals. He was admitted to Cambridge University at the age 
of thirteen, where he studied three years, after which for about two years he 
lived upon the Continent, chiefly in France and Italy. At the age of eight- 




een he was recalled to England by the sudden death of his father. Casting 
about him for an occupation in life, he applied for advice and aid to the 
Cecils, who, though distant relatives of his, and maintaining outward shows 
of regard, appear not only at this time, but throughout Bacon's career, to 
have been little friendly to their kinsman. While his predilections ran 
rather to a studious life than to one of affairs, young Bacon nevertheless set 
himself, upon the advice of his cousin, to the reading of the law. He was 
admitted to practice in 1582, and speedily drew upon him many eyes for 



42 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

the solidity of his parts, the cogency of his logic, and the eloquence of his 
address. It is therefore no occasion of wonder to find him soon afterward 
a member of the House of Commons, where for many years he bore an im- 
portant part in all debates and business. His name is specially identified 
with laws to prevent the enclosure of common lands and the conversion of 
tilled fields into pastures and parks ; to restrict the royal prerogative and 
the encroachments of Lords upon Commons ; as well as with measures 
looking to civil freedom, religious toleration, and to the union of Scotland 
with England. That he was eloquent we may know from the testimony of 
Ben Jonson, who reports that "the fear of every man who heard him was 
lest he should make an end." The higher rewards of public life did not 
come to Bacon till he was past the middle age. He was made successively 
solicitor-general, attorney-general, keeper of the seals, and lord chancellor, 
receiving the last of these appointments in 1618. Three years thereafter he 
was tried by the House of Lords on charges of bribery and corruption as a 
judge, and was convicted, deprived of his office, fined and imprisoned. King 
James, however, speedily ordered his release and remitted his fine, and 
Bacon retired to the country to pursue the more congenial life of student 
and philosopher. Here he died in 1626. 

Witty and pointed sayings stick in the minds of men, and few lines in 
literature are more familiar than Pope's upon Bacon, — " The wisest, 
brightest, meanest of mankind." No doubt, to very many this line has 
sufficed for an estimate of the great philosopher. But Pope was a satirist 
not always very scrupulous in the aiming of his shafts, and in recent years 
the harsher judgments of Bacon's personal character have been many of 
them revised, in keeping with that passage in his will which says, " For my 
name and memory, I leave it to foreign nations, and to my own country 
after some time has passed over." On his trial before the House of Lords, 
at which he was not present, being confined with sickness, Bacon was 
accused of receiving bribes from litigants having suits before him. The 
evidence of this was slender in amount and doubtful in motive, and he stren- 
uously denied the charge, though admitting his acceptance of fees and pres- 
ents after his decisions had been rendered. This, which w^ould now be 
universally condemned, was then the uniform practice. Nearly all offices, 
civil and ecclesiastical, were unsalaried, and, without gifts and fees, could 
not have been maintained. It was a system that Bacon himself saw the evils 
of, and plainly condemned when, after his trial, he wrote, " I was the justest 
judge that was in England this fifty years, but it was the justest censure 
that was in Parliament this two hundred years." It is worthy of note that 
of his very many judicial decisions not one has been reversed. At the 
request of King James he wrote a letter confessing to slackness, but deny- 
ing corruption. Bacon died a comparatively poor man in an age when 
judges, bishops, and statesmen enriched themselves by unblushing venality. 

The charge so often made against Bacon of ingratitude to benefactors 
turns chiefly on the case of the Earl of Essex, who, it is alleged, had given 



BACOhl 43 

him a landed estate, only to be rewarded later on by prosecution even to the 
death at the hands of Bacon. There is evidence that the lawyer's services 
to Essex were great, and for years unrequited, and that finally, having no 
money for payment, the earl made over to Bacon a small property which the 
latter was reluctant to receive, saying plainly, " My Lord, I see I must hold 
land of your gift; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law ? It 
is always with saving of faith to the king." When, at a later time, and in 
spite of curbings and counselings from Bacon, Essex put himself at the 
head of treasonable conspiracies and uprisings against Elizabeth, it became 
the duty of Bacon, as an officer of the Crown, to take part in the prosecution 
of the earl. The manner and the terms of Bacon's address in the perform- 
ance of this duty show clearly how painful it was to him. A man's writings 
must tell of his character, and these in Bacon's case demand some mitiga- 
tion of the severe censures that have so long passed current of him. 

It is through the approval of the learned few that the method of phi- 
losophy which bears Bacon's name has secured common accepfance. His 
Noviwi Orgamim, written in Latin, was published in 1620, and upon this 
work his overshadowing reputation rests. In it he elaborates and estab- 
lishes the inductive method of reasoning, — that is, from particular facts to 
general laws. Up to his time the world's thought had been dominated and 
restricted by the method of Aristotle, which was deductive, — that is, from 
cause to effect. To the Baconian method are largely due the material 
progress and scientific advance of modern times. The work by which Bacon 
is familiarly known is his " Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral," written in 
English. When first published, in 1597, these Essays were ten in number, 
but the volume was expanded from time to time until, in the edition 
published in the last year of the philosopher's life, there were fifty-eight. 
It is from this book that the following selections are taken. 



OF FRIENDSHIP 

It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth 
and untruth together in few words than in that speech, •' U'ho- 
soever is dehghted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god." 
For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversa- 
tion^ towards society in any man hath somewhat of the savage 
beast ; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at 
all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not 'out of a pleasure 

^ aversion 



44 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self 
for a higher conversation, such as is found to have been, falsely 
and feignedly, in some of the heathen, — as Epimenides the 
Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apol- 
lonius of Tyana, — and, truly and really, in divers of the ancient 
hermits and holy fathers of the Church. 

But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it ex- 
tendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gal- 
lery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no 
love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little. Magna civitas, 
7nagna solitudo [A great city is a great solitude] , — because in a 
great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellow- 
ship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we 
may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and mis- 
erable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is 
but a wilderness ; and even in this sense also of solitude, whoso- 
ever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friend- 
ship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. 

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the 
fullness and swelUngs of the heart, which passions of all kinds do 
cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffoca- 
tions are the most dangerous in the body ; and it is not much 
otherwise in the mind. You may take sarza ^ to open the liver, 
steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, casto- 
reum for the brain ; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true 
friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspi- 
cions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, 
in a kind of civil shrift or confession. . . . 

The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true, Co7' ne edito — 
" Eat not the heart." Certainly, if a man would give it a hard 
phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are 
cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable ^ 
(wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, 
that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two 
contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in 

1 sarsaparilla - wonderful 



BACON 45 

halves. For there is no man that miparteth his joys to his 
friend but he joyeth the more, and no man that imparteth his 
griefs to his friend but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in 
truth, of operation upon a man's mind of Uke virtue as the alche- 
mists use to attribute to their stone for man's body, that it work- 
eth all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of 
nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a 
manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature ; for, in 
bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action, 
and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent im- 
pression. And even so is it of minds. 

The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign ^ for 
the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friend- 
ship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections from storm and 
tempests, but it maketh daylight in the understanding out of 
darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be un- 
derstood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from 
his friend ; but before you come to that, certain it is that whoso- 
ever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and un- 
derstanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and 
discoursing with another : he tosseth his thoughts more easily ; 
he marshaleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look 
when they are turned into words ; finally, he waxeth wiser than 
himself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's 
meditation. It was well said by Themistocles to the King of 
Persia ''that speech was like cloth of Arras opened and put 
abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure ; whereas in 
thoughts they lie but as in packs." Neither is this second fruit 
of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained^ only to 
such friends as are able to give a man counsel (they, indeed, are 
best) ; but even without that a man learneth of himself, and 
bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as 
against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were 
better relate himself to a statua or picture than to suffer his 
thoughts to pass in smother.^ 

1 efficacious 2 restricted ^ suppression 



46 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, 
that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar 
observation — which is, faithful counsel from a friend. Heracli- 
tus saith well, in one of his enigmas, " Dry light is ever the best." 
And certain it is that the light that a man receiveth by counsel 
from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his 
own understanding and judgment, which is ever infused and 
drenched in his affections ^ and customs : so as there is as much 
difference between the counsel that a friend giveth and that a 
man giveth himself as there is between the counsel of a friend 
and of a flatterer ; for there is no such flatterer as is a man's self, 
and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self as the 
liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts : the one concerning 
manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best 
preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition 
of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a 
medicine sometime too piercing and corrosive, reading good 
books of morality is a little flat and dead, observing our faults in 
others is sometimes unproper for our case ; but the best receipt 
(best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a 
friend. 

It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme 
absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit for 
want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both 
of their fame and fortune ; for, as Saint James saith, they are as 
men " that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their 
own shape and favor." ^ x\s for business, a man may think, if he 
will, that two eyes see no more than one ; or that a gamester 
seeth always more than a looker-on ; or that a man in anger is as 
wise as he that hath said over the four-and-twenty letters ; or 
that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a 
rest ; and such other fond and high imaginations to think himself 
all in all : but when aU is done, the help of good counsel is that 
which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he 
will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces — asking counsel in 

1 propensities ^ a loose quotation from Saint James i. 23, 24 



BACON 47 

one business of one man, and in another business of another 
man — it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked 
none at all) ; but he runneth two dangers : one, that he shall not 
be faithfully counseled — for it is a rare thing, except it be from 
a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given but such as, 
shall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that 
giveth it ; the other, that he shall have counsel given hurtful and 
unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mis- 
chief and partly of remedy — even as if you would call a physician 
that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, 
but is unacquainted with your body, and therefore may put you 
in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some 
other kind, and so cure the disease and kill the patient. But a 
friend that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate will beware, 
by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other 
inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels ; 
they will rather distract and mislead than settle and direct. 

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the af- 
fections and support of the judgment) followeth the last fruit, 
which is, like the pomegranate, full of many kernels ; I mean aid, 
and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best 
way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship is to cast 
and see how many things there are which a man can not do him- 
self; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the 
ancients to say " that a friend is another himself," for that a 
friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die 
many times in desire of some things which they principally take 
to heart, — the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the 
like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure 
that the care of those things will continue after him ; so that a 
man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a 
body, and that body is confined to a place ; but where friendship 
is, all offices of life are, as it were, granted to him and his deputy, 
for he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are 
there which a man can not, with any face ^ or comehness ^ say or do 

1 confidence 2 propriety 



48 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

himself ! A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, 
much less extol them ; a man can not sometimes brook to suppli- 
cate or beg, and a number of the like ; but all these things are 
graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. 
So, again, a man's person hath many proper relations, which he 
can not put off. A man can not speak to his son but as a father ; 
to his wife, but as a husband ; to his enemy, but upon terms : 
whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it 
sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were 
endless. I have given the rule : where a man can not fitly play 
his own part, if he have not a friend he may quit the stage. 



OF GOODNESS, AND GOODNESS OF NATURE 

I TAKE goodness in this sense, — the affecting^ of the weal of 
men, which is what the Grecians call philanthropia ; and the 
word " humanity," as it is used, is a little too light to express 
it. Goodness I call the habit \ and goodness of nature, the in- 
clination. This, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the 
greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it man 
is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of 
vermin. Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and 
admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused 
the angels to fall ; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man 
to fall ; but in charity there is no excess ; neither can angel or 
man come in danger by it. 

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature 
of man, insomuch that, if it issue not towards men, it will take 
unto other living creatures; as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel 
people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and give alms to 
dogs and birds ; insomuch as, Busbechius reporteth, a Christian 
boy in Constantinople had liked to have been stoned for gagging, 
in a waggishness, a long-billed fowl. Errors, indeed, in this virtue 

1 desiring 



BACON 49 

of goodness or charity, may be committed. The ItaHans have 
an ungracious proverb, lanto biion, che val niente [So good that 
he is good for nothing]. And one of the doctors of Italy, Nicho- 
las Machiavel, had the confidence ^ to put in writing, almost in 
plain terms, " That the Christian faith had given up good men in 
prey to those that are tyrannical and unjust;" which he spake 
because, indeed, there was never law or sect or opinion did so 
magnify goodness as the Christian religion doth : it is good to 
take knowledge of the errors of a habit so excellent. 

Seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their 
faces or fancies ; for that is but facility or softness, which taketh 
an honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou ^sop's cock a gem, 
who would be better pleased and happier if he had a. barley-corn. 
The example of God teacheth the lesson truly : " He sendeth his 
rain, and maketh his sun to shine, upon the just and unjust ; " 
but he doth not rain wealth, nor shine honor and virtues, upon 
men equally. Common benefits are to be communicated with 
all, but pecuUar benefits with- choice.^ And beware how, in 
making the portraiture, thou breakest the pattern ; for divinity 
maketh the love of ourselves the pattern, the love of our neigh- 
bors but the portraiture. *' Sell all thou hast, and give it to the 
poor, and follow me : " but sell not all thou hast, except thou 
come and follow me, — that is, except thou have a vocation 
wherein thou mayest do as much good with little means as 
with great ; for otherwise, in feeding the streams thou driest 
the fountain. 

Neither is there only a habit of goodness directed by right 
reason : but there is in some men, even in nature, a disposition 
toward it ; as, on the other side, there is a natural malignity ; 
for there be ^ that in their nature do not affect the good of others. 
The lighter sort of malignity turneth but to a crossness or froward- 
ness,^ or aptness to oppose, or difficileness, or the like ; but the 
deeper sort to envy and mere mischief. Such men, in other 
men's calamities, are, as it were, in season, and are ever on the 
loading part ; not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores, 

1 boldness ^ ^ chosen few ^ those understood * contrariety 

4 



50 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

but like flies that are still ' buzzing upon anything that is raw ; 
misanthropi,^ that make it their practice to bring men to the 
bough, and yet have never a tree for the purpose in their gar- 
dens, as Timon had.^ Such dispositions are the very errors of 
human nature : and yet they are the fittest timber to make great 
politics of; like to knee- timber, that is good for ships that are 
ordained to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand 
firm. 

The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gra- 
cious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the 
world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, 
but a continent that joins to them. If he be compassionate 
towards the afflictions of others, it shows that his heart is like 
the noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives the balm. 
If he easily pardons and remits offenses, it shows that his mind 
is planted above injuries, so that he can not be shot.^ If he be 
thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, 
and not their trash. But, above all, if he have Saint Paul's per- 
fection, that he would wish to be anathema from Christ for the 
salvation of his brethren, it shows much of a divine nature, and a 
kind of conformity with Christ himself. 



OF LEARNING 

Learning taketh away the wildness, and barbarism, and fierce- 
ness of men's minds : though a little superficial learning doth 
rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity, 
and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, 
and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and 
to turn back the first offers and conceits of the kind, and to 
accept of nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain 

' always ^ ^n obsolete plural 

^ Compare Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens/' Act v. Sc. 2. — "I have a 
tree, which grows here in my close/' etc. ^ changed, swerved 



BACON 51 

admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness : for all 
things are admired either because they are new or because they 
are great. For novelty, no man wadeth in learning or contem- 
plation thoroughly, but with that printed in his heart, " I know 
nothing." Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, 
that goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. 

And as for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he 
was used to great armies and the great conquest of the spacious 
provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece, of some 
fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage, or 
fort, or some walled town at the most, he said, '' It seemed to 
him that he was advertised^ of the batde of the frogs and the 
mice, that the old tales went of ; " — so certainly, if a man meditate 
upon the universal frame of Nature, the earth with men upon it, 
the divineness of souls excepted, will not seem much other than 
an ant-hill, where some ants carry com, and some carry their 
young, and some go empty, and all to and fro^ a little heap of 
dust. 

It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death, or adverse fortune, 
which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue and imperfec- 
tions of manners. For if a man's mind be deeply seasoned with 
the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, 
he will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and 
saw a woman weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken ; 
and went forth the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son 
that was dead ; and thereupon said, " Yesterday I saw a fragile 
thing broken; to-day I have seen a mortal thing die." And 
therefore Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowl- 
edge of causes and the conquest of all fears together. 

^ literally, " turned toward," and hence, apprised, informed 
2 to and fro ; that is, backward and forward upon, etc. 



52 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

A GARLAND OF ELIZABETHAN LYRICS 

I. The Gifts of God 

When God at first made man, 
Having a glass of blessings standing by ; 
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can : 
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, 

Contract into a span. 

So strength first made a way ; 
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure : 
When almost all was out, God made a stay. 
Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure, 

Rest in the bottom lay. 

For if I should (said He) 
Bestow this jewel also on my creature, 
He would adore my gifts instead of me. 
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature : 

So both should losers be. 

Yet let him keep the rest. 

But keep them with repining restlessness : 

Let him be rich and weary, that at least, 

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 

May toss him to my breast. 

George Herbert 



11. The Happy Life 

How happy is he born and taught 
That serveth not another's will ; 
Whose armor is his honest thought 
And simple truth his utmost skill ! 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS S3 

Whose passions not his masters are, 
Whose soul is still prepared for death, 
Not tied unto the world with care 
Of pubhc fame, or private breath ; 

Who envies none that chance doth raise 
Or vice ; who never understood 
How deepest wounds are given by praise ; 
Nor rules of state, but rules of good : 

Who hath his life from rumors freed, 
Whose conscience is his strong retreat ; 
Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 
Nor ruin make accusers great ; 

Who God doth late and early pray 
More of His grace than gifts to lend ; 
And entertains the harmless day 
With a well-chosen book or friend ; 

— This man is freed from servile bands 
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; 
Lord of himself, though not of lands ; 
And having nothing, yet hath all. 

Henry Wotton 



HI. Death, the Leveler 

The glories of our blood and state 

Are shadows, not substantial things ; 
There is no armor against fate ; 
Death lays his icy hand on kings : 
Scepter and crown 
Must tumble down. 
And in the dust be equal made 
With the poor crooked scythe and spade. 



54 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

Some men with swords may reap the field, 
And plant fresh laurels where they kill : 
But their strong nerves at last must yield ; 
They tame but one another still : 
Early or late 
They stoop to fate, 
And must give up their murmuring breath 
When they, pale captives, creep to death. 

The garlands wither on your brow ; 

Then boast no more your mighty deeds ; 
Upon Death's purple altar now 

See where the victor victim bleeds : 
Your heads must come 
To the cold tomb ; 
Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust. 

James Shirley 



IV. On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey 

Mortality, behold and fear 

What a change of flesh is here ! 

Think how many royal bones 

Sleep within these heaps of stones ; 

Here they lie, had realms and lands. 

Who now want strength to stir their hands. 

Where from their pulpits sealed with dust 

They preach, " In greatness is no trust." 

Here 's an acre sown indeed 

With the richest royalest seed 

That the earth did e'er suck in 

Since the first man died for sin : 

Here the bones of birth have cried 

" Though gods they were, as men they died ! 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS 55 

Here are sands, ignoble things, 
Dropped from the ruined sides of kings : 
Here 's a world of pomp and state 
Buried in dust, once dead by fate. 

Francis Beaumont 



V. Melancholy 



Hence, all you vain delights, 

As short as are the nights 

Wherein you spend your folly : 

There 's naught in this life sweet 

If man were wise to see 't. 

But only Melancholy, 

O sweetest Melancholy ! 
Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes, 
A sigh that piercing mortifies ! 
A look that 's fastened on the ground, 
A tongue chained up without a sound ! 
Fountain heads and pathless groves, 
Places which pale passion loves ! 
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls 
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls ! 
A midnight bell, a parting groan ! 
These are the sounds we feed upon ; 
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley ; 
Nothing 's so dainty-sweet as lovely Melancholy. 

John Fletcher 



VI. To Dmneme 



Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes 
Which starlike sparkle in their skies ; 
Nor be you proud, that you can see 
All hearts your captives ; yours yet free 



56 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Be you not proud of that rich hair 
Which wantons with the lovesick air ; 
Whenas that ruby which you wear, 
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear, 
Will last to be a precious stone 
W^hen all your world of beauty 's gone. 

Robert Herrick 




Cj^^rt ^^Sayric^^^^ 



VII. To LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WaRS 

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind 

That, from the nunnery 
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind. 

To war and arms I fly. 



True, a new mistress now I chase. 
The first foe in the field ; 

And with a stronger faith embrace 
A sword, a horse, a shield. 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY H^RITERS 57 

Yet this inconstancy is such 

As you too shall adore ; 
I could not love thee, Dear, so much, 

Loved I not Honor more. 

Richard Lovelace 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 

Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618, soldier and courtier; author of "A 
History of the World." 

Richard Hooker, 1 553-1 598, Anglican divine; author of "A Treatise 
on the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity." 

Sir Philip Sidney, 1 554-1586, courtier, soldier, and scholar; author 
of " The Arcadia," " A Defense of Poesy," and several beautiful 
sonnets. 

Samuel Daniel, 1 562-1619, author of a poetical " History of the Civil 
Wars," and of many minor poems. 

Michael Drayton, 1563-1631, poet; author of "The Shepherd's Gar- 
land," " England's Heroical Epistles," and other works. 

Christopher Marlowe, 1 563-1 593, dramatic poet; important plays 
were " Faustus," '' Tamburlaine," and " Edward IL" 

Sir Henry Wotton, 1 568-1 639, diplomatist and poet; wrote many 
lyrics of a high order of merit. See " The Happy Life," page 52. 

John Donne, 1573-1631; distinguished Anglican divine; numerous 
satires, epistles, and short poems. 

Robert Burton, 1 578-1640, a retired and laborious scholar; famous 
for his " Anatomy of Melancholy." 

Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 1 581-1648, theologian and historian; 
"History of Henry VIII." and '' de Veritate'' are his most im- 
portant works. 

Philip Massinger, 1 584-1 640, playwright; "A New Way to Pay Old 
Debts " and " The Renegado " are the best of his dramas. 

William Drummond, 1585-1649, Scotch poet; author of "The Flow- 
ers of Zion," and of many beautiful sonnets. 

Francis Beaumont, 1586-1615, joint author, with John Fletcher, 
1 576-1625, of more than fifty tragedies and comedies. See poems, 
pages 54, 55. 



58 



CATHC/IRT'S LITERARY READER 



John Ford, 1586-1639, dramatist; two of bis plays of a high order 
of excellence are " The Broken Heart " and " Love's Sacrifice." 

Thomas Hobbes, 1 588-1679, metaphysician and logician; his "Trea- 
tise on Human Nature" and his " Letter on Liberty and Necessity" 
are his chief productions. 

Robert Herrick, 1 591 -1674, author of many beautiful lyrics. See 
'•To Dianeme," page 55. 

George Herbert, 1 593-1632, Anglican clergyman, and author of 
many sacred songs. See " The Gifts of God," page 52. 

James Shirley, 1 594-1666, the last of the Elizabethan dramatists; 
author of many comedies. See " Death, the Leveler," page 53. 

Edmund "Waller, 1605-1687, politician and poet; wrote an Ode to 
Cromwell, and many love-songs. 







LITERATURE OF THE COMMON IVEALTH 59 



III 



THE LITERATURE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 
AND THE RESTORATION 

MILTON — DRYDEN 

^ I ^HE last seventy-five years of the seventeenth century 
-^ witnessed the execution of Charles I., the rise and 
fall of the Commonwealth, the Restoration, and the Revo- 
lution of 1688, — a series of upheavals and changes that 
were not dynastic merely, but accompanied by equally 
radical alterations in the manners and thought of the Eng- 
lish people. The literature of that time bears internal 
evidence of changes in intellectual and spiritual habitudes 
quite as great as those other changes that affected the for- 
tunes of the State. 

Milton, a reformer in religion and in politics, gave voice 
in both prose and verse to the spirit that animated the 
Puritans; Dryden, a satirist and critic of literature, con- 
formed to and reflected the spirit of the Restoration. 
Each in his sphere was pre-eminent. Milton, as Matthew 
Arnold well expresses it, was '' the last of the Immortals." 
He was filled with the poetic ardor and imaginative power 
of the Elizabethan classics, though representing a later 
and very different school of thought. His prose is little 
read. It consists mainly of controversial tracts incentive 
to reform in church and state. The style of these is 
archaic, and to the modern sense more difficult than the 
earlier prose of Bacon. These pamphlets were put forth 
before the Civil War; his great poems did not appear 
until after the Restoration, in 1660. In Dryden this order 
seems to have been reversed ; he was a poet first, an 



6o 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



essayist afterwards. It is interesting to note that Dryden 
had some acquaintance with his great predecessor, but he 
was little influenced by Milton. There could not, indeed, 
have been much community of sentiment between the two. 
By general consent of competent judges, English prose 
as we know it had its beginnings at the time of the Resto- 
ration. There is to be discovered in the essays of Dryden 

a structure of the sentence 
and a use of terms which, 
as modified by Swift and Ad- 
dison, and developed after 
them by Johnson and the 
group of writers who sur- 
rounded him, became finally 
our own literary form. 

Other prose writers of note 
were few in the time we are 
considering. Baxter and Bun- 
yan, each in his peculiar field 
of religious work, Locke in 
metaphysics, and Newton in 
science, were the principal 
figures. Far greater influ- 
ence upon the speech of the English people was exercised 
by the pulpit in the finished and powerful sermons of such 
divines as Burnet, Fuller, and Jeremy Taylor. 

The seventeenth century marks the close of our early 
poetical style, — of which we see the consummation in Mil- 
ton, — and the opening of the modern period, whose herald 
was Dryden. Herbert, Marvell, and Cowley had natural- 
ness and simplicity of thought; but the style of Dryden 
and his followers was a distinct advance in clearness of 
expression. English letters were, in these two or three 
generations, in a transitional state, — the old was passing 
away, the new was gradually but surely superseding it. 




J^ddd'^^W^/l 



MILTON 



61 



MILTON 

I 608- I 674 

John Milton — clariim et venerabile nomen — was born in London in 
December, 1608, and died November, 1674. He was the son of John Milton, 
a respectable scrivener. The younger John entered Christ's College, Cam- 
bridge, at the age of sixteen, and became distinguished during his University 
career for his brilliant poetical abilities. He was destined for the service of 




<$^^ fVlvUtrrx. 



the Church; but on arriving at manhood he found — to quote his own 
words — " what tyranny had invaded the Church, and that he who would 
take orders must subscribe Slave." He therefore turned his thoughts to the 
law, but soon abandoned it, and gave his undivided attention to literature. 
The death of his mother, in 1637, affected his health, and he sought to re- 
store it by travel. He visited several Continental countries, and while in 
Italy made the acquaintance of Galileo. Returning to England in 1639, he 



62 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

found the nation in a fever of political excitement, and lost no time in de- 
claring himself with reference to the momentous questions then under dis- 
cussion. In 1641 and 1642 he published his first polemical treatises, which 
made a profound impression. The most important of these was the " Areo- 
pagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing," in which Milton 
eloquently appeals to parliament to abolish the censorship of books. It was 
a written, not a spoken "speech." Milton took its title from the name of 
the supreme tribunal of justice of ancient Athens, the Areopagus, the edifice 
of which stood on the Hill of Ares (Mars). His political pamphlets brought 
Milton into prominence, and led to his being appointed, in 1649, Latin Sec- 
retary to the Council of State, which office he held eight years. During 
that period he wrote his famous " Eikonoklastes " and several other works. 
In 1660 the monarchy was re-established, and thenceforward he took no 
part in public life. 

" Paradise Lost," was written after he had become totally blind, which 
happened in 1652, the great epic being dictated to his daughter. It repre- 
sents the only successful attempt ever made to construct a drama whose 
principal personages are supernatural ; in this character it stands above 
others unapproached. To the student it offers a field whose exploration 
never ceases to be delightful. In design, if not in execution, it is one of 
the noblest poetical products of human genius. 

Comtis, a lyrical drama, and Samson Agonistes ("Samson in Struggle") 
are in blank verse. V Allegro (" The Cheerful Man ") and // Pensieroso 
("The Meditative Man") are complementary poems of great beauty of form. 
Lycidas^ the last of our selections from Milton, has been called " the touch- 
stone of taste," the implication being that he who can not admire it has no 
taste for poetry. 



THE INVOCATION AND INTRODUCTION TO 
"PARADISE LOST" 

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal ^ taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat. 
Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top 

1 deadly 



MILTON 63 

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire 
Tliat shepherd/ who first taught the chosen seed 
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth 
Rose out of Chaos : or, if Sion hill 
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed 
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence 
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song. 
That with no middle flight intends to soar 
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues 
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. 
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer 
Before all temples the upright heart and pure. 
Instruct me, for thou know'st ; thou from the first 
Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread, 
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, 
And mad' St it pregnant : what in me is dark 
Illumine ; what is low raise and support ; 
That to the height of this great argument 
I may assert eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to man. 

Say first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view. 
Nor the deep tract of Hell ; say first, what cause 
Moved our grand parents, in that happy state. 
Favored of Heaven so highly, to fall off 
From their Creator, and transgress his will. 
For ^ one restraint, lords of the world besides ? 
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? 
The infernal Serpent : he it was, whose guile, 
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived 
The mother of mankind, what time his pride 
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host 
Of rebel angels ; by whose aid, aspiring 
To set himself in glory above his peers, 
He trusted to have equaled the Most High, 

^ Moses - but for 



64 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

If He opposed ; and, with ambitious aim 
Against the throne and monarchy of God, 
Raised impious war in Heaven, and battle proud, 
With vain attempt. Him the Ahiiighty Power 
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, 
With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell 
In adamantine chains and penal fire. 
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. 



ADAM AND EVE'S MORNING HYMN 

These are thy glorious works. Parent of good, 

Almighty ! Thine this universal frame. 

Thus wondrous fair ; Thyself how wondrous then ! 

Unspeakable, who sit'st above these heavens 

To us invisible, or dimly seen 

In these thy lovv^est works ; yet these declare 

Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine. 

Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light, 

Angels ; for ye behold Him, and with songs 

And choral symphonies, day without night. 

Circle his throne rejoicing ; ye, in Heaven : 

On Earth join, all ye creatures, to extol 

Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. 

Fairest of stars, last in the train of night. 

If better thou belong not to the dawn. 

Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn 

With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere. 

While day arises, that sweet hour of prime. 

Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and soul. 

Acknowledge him thy greater ; sound his praise 

In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st. 

And when high noon hast gained, and when thou fall'st. 



MILTON 65 

Moon, that now meet'st the orient Sun, now fly'st, 

With the fixed stars, fixed in their orb that flies ; 

And ye five other wandering fires, that move 

In mystic dance not without song, resound 

His praise, who out of darkness called up light. 

Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth 

Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion ^ run. 

Perpetual circle, multiform ; and mix 

And nourish all things ; let your ceaseless change 

Vary to our great Maker still new praise. 

Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise 

From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray. 

Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold, 

In honor to the world's great Author rise ; 

Whether to deck with clouds the uncolored sky, 

Or wet the thirsty earth with faUing showers, 

Rising or falling still advance his praise. 

His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow, 

Breathe soft or loud ; and wave your tops, ye pines. 

With every plant, in sign of worship, wave. 

Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow 

Melodious murmurs, warbling, tune his praise. 

Join voices, all ye living souls : ye birds. 

That singing up to Heaven-gate ascend, 

Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise. 

Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk 

The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep ; 

Witness if I be silent, morn or even, 

To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade, 

Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise. 

Hail, Universal Lord, be bounteous still 

To give us only good ; and if the night 

Have gathered aught of evil or concealed, 

Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark ! 

1 referring to i\\e four so-called "elements " of ancient philosophy — air, 
earth, water, and fire 

s 



66 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



MAY MORNING 

Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, 
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her 
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose. 
Hail bounteous May ! that dost inspire 
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire ; 
Woods and groves are of thy dressing, 
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. 
Thus we salute thee with our early song, 
And welcome thee and wish thee long. 



How charming is divine philosophy ! 

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 

But musical as is Apollo's lute. 

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets. 

Where no crude surfeit reigns. 



LYCIDAS 



Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, 

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude. 

And with forced fingers rude 

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 

Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear 

Compels me to disturb your season due : 

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. 



1 Elegy on a friend, Edward King, drowned in the Irish Channel 



MILTOH 6y 

Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew 
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of some melodious tear. 

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well ^ 
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring, 
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. 
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse ! 
So may some gentle muse 
With lucky words favor my destined urn. 
And, as he passes, turn 
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. 

For we were nursed upon the self- same hill, 
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill. 
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared 
Under the opening eyelids of the morn. 
We drove a-field, and both together heard 
What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn. 
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night ; 
Oft till the star, that rose at evening bright. 
Toward Heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. 
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute. 
Tempered to the oaten flute ; 
Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel 
From the glad sound would not be absent long ; 
And old Damoetas ^ loved to hear our song. 

But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone, 
Now thou art gone, and never must return ! 
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves 
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 

J the Muses ^ Virgil's personification of a herdsman 



68 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

And all their echoes, mourn. 

The willows and the hazel copses green 

Shall now no more be seen 

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays : — 

As killing as the canker to the rose, 

Or taint- worm to the weanling herds that graze, 

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear 

When first the whitethorn blows ; 

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear. 

Where were ye. Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 
Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas ? 
For neither were ye playing on the steep 
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie. 
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona ^ high. 
Nor yet where Deva'^ spreads her wizard stream. 
Ay me ! I fondly dream — 

Had ye been there — for what could that have done ? 
What could the muse herself that Orpheus bore, 
The muse herself, for her enchanting son. 
Whom universal nature did lament. 
When by the rout that made the hideous roar 
His gory visage down the stream was sent, 
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? 

Alas ! what boots it with incessant care 
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, 
And strictly meditate ^ the thankless muse ? 
Were it not better done, as others use, 
To sport with Amaryllis * in the shade. 
Or with the tangles of Neaera's* hair? 
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of noble mind) 
To scorn delights and live laborious days ; 

1 Anglesea ^ the river Dee ^ devote one's self to 

* names used by Horace and Virgil to personify a sweetheart 



MILTON 6g 

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
Comes the bhnd Fury i with the abhorred shears 
And sUts the thin-spun hfe. " But not the praise " 
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears ; 
" Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. 
Nor in the glistering foil ^ 
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies ; 
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; 
As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." 

O fountain Arethuse,^ and thou honored flood 
Smooth-sliding Mincius,^^ crowned with vocal reeds ! 
That strain I heard was of a higher mood : 
But now my oat * proceeds, 
x\nd listens to the herald of the sea 
That came in Neptune's plea ; 
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, 
" What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? " 
And questioned every gust of rugged wings 
That blows from off each beaked promontory : 
They knew not of his story ; 
And sage Hippotades ^ their answer brings. 
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed ; 
The air was calm, and on the level brine 
Sleek Panope ^ with all her sisters played. 
'•' It was that fatal and perfidious bark 
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark. 
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine." ^ 

1 Atropos, fabled to cut the thread of life 2 mirror 

3 Sicilian and Italian rivers, here referred to as synonymous with the 
pastorals of Theocritus and Virgil 
* pipe, /. e. song ^ a sea-nymph 

^ ^olus, god of the winds "? See page 7 



70 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Next Camus,^ reverend sire, went footing slow, 
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,^ 
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 
Like to that sanguine flower ^ inscribed with woe : 
"Ah ! who hath reft," quoth he, " my dearest pledge ! " 
Last came, and last did go 
The pilot of the Galilean lake ; ^ 
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain 
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain) : 
He shook his mitered locks, and stern bespake : 
" How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 
Enow of such as, for their bellies' sake. 
Creep and intrude and climb into the fold ! 
Of other care they little reckoning make 
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast. 
And shove away the worthy bidden guest ; 
Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least 
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs ! 
What recks it them ? what need they ? They are sped ; 
And when they Hst, their lean and flashy songs 
Grate on their scrannel ^ pipes of wretched straw ; 
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed. 
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw. 
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread. 
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
Daily devours apace, and nothing said : 
— But that two-handed engine at the door 
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." 

Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past 
That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian muse. 
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 

1 the river Cam, personification of Cambridge University 
- covered with weed * Saint Peter 

^ the iris ^ thin, poor 



71 



MILTON 

Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. 

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 

Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks 

On whose fresh lap the swart-star ^ sparely looks ; 

Throw hither all your quaint enameled eyes 

That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers 

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 

Bring the rathe ^ primrose that forsaken dies. 

The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine. 

The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet. 

The glowing violet, 

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, 

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, 

And every flower that sad embroidery wears : 

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed. 

And daflbdilhes fill their cups with tears 

To strew the laureat ^ hearse where Lycid lies. 

For, so to interpose a little ease. 

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise ; 

Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 

Wash far away — where'er thy bones are hurled, 

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides 

Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, 

Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world ; 

Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 

Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus ^ old. 

Where the great Vision of the guarded mount 

Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold — 

Look homeward. Angel, now, and melt with ruth : 

And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth ! 

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, 
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, 
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor ; 
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 

1 the dog-star 2 early ^ laureled •* a Cornish giant 



72 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

And yet anon repairs his drooping head 

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky : 

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high 

Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves ; ^ 

Where, other groves and other streams along, 

With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 

And hears the unexpressive '^ nuptial song 

In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 

There entertain him all the saints above 

In solemn troops, and sweet societies, 

That sing, and, singing, in their glory move. 

And wipe the tears forever from his eyes. 

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more ; 

Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore 

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 

To all that wander in that perilous flood. 

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 
While the still morn went out with sandals gray ; 
He touched the tender stops of various quills, 
With eager thought warbling his Doric ^ lay : 
And now the sun had stretched out * all the hills, 
And now was dropped into the western bay : 
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue : — 
To-morrow, to fresh woods and pastures new ! 



Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency 
of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny 
they are ; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy 
and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. — Froj/i 
the "A reopagitica . ' ' 

i Note the special aptness of this fine allusion. ^ pastoral 

- inexpressible * Meaning? 



DRYDEN 



73 



DRYDEN 

1631-1701 

The father of John Dryden was a Puritan of Northamptonshire and a 
man of considerable means and good family. The poet was born in the 
year 1631. Of his earlier years we know little beyond the facts that he was 
a pupil at Westminster School and that he took his degree at Cambridge. 
His first appearance as a candidate for poetical honors was in the year 1658, 
when, upon the death of Cromwell, he published his verses laudatory of the 




Puritan leader. Upon the Restoration of Charles II. the poet was suffi- 
ciently impartial in the distribution of his favors to put forth a congratu- 
latory ode upon that "happy event." Throughout the decade following, 
Dryden maintained himself chiefly by writing for the dramatic stage, pro- 
ducing during this time more than a score of plays. In 1668 he was made 
poet-laureate, which place he held till the Revolution of 1688, when the 
honor was transferred to Shadwell. In the reign of James, Dryden had 
embraced the Catholic faith, and could therefore hardly complain when the 
laureateship was withdrawn from him. This change, however, gave him the 
opportunity to display his mastery of satire, as well as to gratify his resent- 
ment, in the poem " Mac Flecknoe," in which he mercilessly ridicules his 



74 CATHCART'S LITERAR) READER 

successor's poetic pretensions. While he was laureate the income of that 
post sufficed to render Dryden's circumstances somewhat easy; but heap- 
pears throughout his life to have been more or less needy, often using his pen 
for gain rather than for fame, — as, indeed, he frankly avowed was the fact in 
all his writing for the stage. He died, of a complication of disorders, on the 
1st of May, 1701. 

His dramatic works, though forming a considerable part of Dryden's liter- 
ary remains, have contributed scarcely anything to his fame as a poet. 
This rests chiefly upon his translations from the Latin poets, notably the 
" yEneid " of Virgil, upon his satires, odes, and shorter poems, and upon 
his contributions to literary criticism. He was the first of English writers 
to lay down a system of general rules by which the merits of a composition 
might be determined, as well as the first to define the limits within which 
the license of poetical translation should properly confine itself. He seems 
also to have been the first to combine poetry with philosophy, — a method still 
further developed in the writings of Pope. Most of Dryden's satires were 
prompted by political enmities or rivalries. His best-known production in 
this field is entitled " Absalom and Achitophel," in which the principal vic- 
tims of his invective were the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Shaftes- 
bury. The most important of his prose writings is his " Essay on Dramatic 
Poetry." His so-called " Fables," which were merely tales in verse, and 
his second ode for St. Cecilia's day, both written shortly before his death, so 
far from showing any decay of the poet's powers, are justly regarded as 
superior to much of his earlier work. 

The bent of Dryden's mind was argumentative and controversial. He was 
not a poet of the emotions, nor did Nature in any of her aspects appeal to 
him as an interpreter. The whole body of his verse contains little to indi- 
cate sensibility to things simple and natural, and nothing that is pathetic. It 
has accordingly been a favorite criticism upon his translations that they lose 
in the rendering much of the tender charm of the originals. 



SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAYi 

From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
This universal frame began : 

When nature underneath a heap 
Of jarring atoms lay. 



1 This poem was written in 1687 for the occasion of the annual celebra- 
tion of St. Cecilia's day by a London musical society. Ten years later, 
and for'the same object, Dryden wrote his longer ode, entitled, "Alexander's 
Feast; or, the Power of Music." Saint Cecilia is the patron saint of music, 
and to her has been ascribed the invention of the organ. 



DRYDEN 75 

And could not heave her head, 

The tuneful voice was heard from high, 

Arise, ye more than dead ! 
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry 
In order to their stations leap, 

And music's power obey. 
From harmony, from heavenly harmony 

This universal frame began : 

From harmony to harmony 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran. 
The diapason^ closing full in man. 

What passion can not music raise and quell ! 

When Jubal ^ struck the chorded shell 
His listening brethren stood around. 
And, wondering, on their faces fell 
To worship that celestial sound. 
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell 

Within the hollow of that shell 

That spoke so sweetly and so well. 
What passion can not music raise and quell ! 

The trumpet's loud clangor 

Excites us to arms, 
With shrill notes of anger 
And mortal alarms. 
The double, double, double beat 

Of the thundering drum 
Cries, " Hark ! the foes come ; 
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat ! " 

The soft complaining flute 
In dying notes discovers » 

1 the entire compass of tones 

2 See Genesis iv. 21. 



\ 



^e CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

The woes of hopeless lovers, 
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. 

Sharp violins proclaim 
Their jealous pangs and desperation, 
Fury, frantic indignation, 
Depth of pains, and height of passion 

For the fair, disdainful dame. 

But O, what art can teach, 
What human voice can reach 

The sacred organ's praise? 
Notes inspiring holy love. 
Notes that wing their heavenly ways 

To mend -^ the choirs above. 

Orpheus could lead the savage race. 
And trees uprooted left their place 

Sequacious ^ of the lyre : 
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher : 
When to her Organ vocal breath was given 
An angel heard, and straight appeared — 

Mistaking earth for heaven ! 

Gi'cDid Chorus 

As from the power of sacred lays 

The spheres began to move, • 

And sung the great Creator's praise 

To all the blest above ; 
So when the last and dreadful hour 
This crumbling pageant shall devour. 
The trumpet shall be heard on high. 
The dead shall live, the living die, 
And music shall untune the sky. 

1 amend, assist 

2 following, attendant upon 



DRYDEN ;; 

MAC FLECKNOEi 

All human things are subject to decay, 
And when fate summons, monarchs must obey. 
This Flecknoe found, who, hke Augustus, young 
Was called to empire, and had governed long ; 
In prose and verse was owned, without dispute, 
Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute. 
This aged prince, now flourishing in peace. 
And blest with issue of a large increase ; 
Worn out with business, did at length debate 
To settle the succession of the state : 
And, pondering, which of all his sons was fit 
To reign, and wage immortal war with wit. 
Cried, " 'T is resolved ; for nature pleads, that he 
Should only rule that most resembles me. 
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, 
Mature in dulness from his tender years : 
Shadwell alone, of all m.y sons, is he 
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity. 
The rest to some faint meaning make pretense. 
But Shadwell never deviates into sense. 
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, 
Strike through, and make a lucid interval ; 
But Shadwell' s genuine night admits no ray. 
His rising fogs prevail upon the day. ... 
Heywood and Shirley ^ were but types of thee. 
Thou last great prophet of tautology. 
Even I, a dunce of more renown than they. 
Was sent before but to prepare thy way ; 

1 Mac Flecknoe, /. e. son of Flecknoe. This piece well illustrates 
Dryden's powers as a satirist. He lampoons Thomas Shadwell by the pre- 
tense that the mantle of Flecknoe, a mere scribbler, has fallen to him by 
rightful inheritance. This satire, said to have suggested to Pope the idea 
which was developed in his "Dunciad," while sufficiently bitter, yet lacks the 
virulence which deformed most of Dryden's polemical writings. 

2 Heywood and Shirley were minor dramatists of the time. 



78 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

And, coarsely clad in Norwich drugget, came 

To teach the nations in thy greater name." — 

. . . Here stopt the good old sire, and wept for joy, 

In silent raptures of the hopeful boy. 

All arguments, but most his plays, persuade 

That for anointed dulness he was made. 



ODE TO THE MEMORY OF MS. ANNE KILLIGREWi 

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, 
Made in the last promotion of the blest ; 
Whose palms, new plucked from paradise, 
In spreading branches more sublimely rise, 
Rich with immortal green above the rest : 
Whether, adopted to some neighb'ring star, 
Thou roU'st above us, in thy wand'ring race. 

Or, in procession fixed and regular, 

Mov'st with the heavens' majestic pace ; 

Or, called to more superior bliss, 
Thou tread'st, with seraphims,- the vast abyss : 
Whatever happy region is thy place. 
Cease thy celestial song a little space ; 
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, 

Since heaven's eternal year is thine. 
Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse. 

In no ignoble verse ; 
But such as thy own voice did practice here, 
When thy first fruits of poesy were given ; 
To make thyself a welcome inmate there : 

While yet a young probationer, 

And candidate ^ of heaven. 



1 Dr. Johnson said of this poem, " It is undoubtedly the noblest ode that 
our language ever has produced." 

- See Webster's Dictionary for the correct plural form. 
3 literally, " one clothed in white " 



DRYDEN 79 

If by traduction ^ came thy mind.. 

Our wonder is the less to find 
A soul so charming from a stock so good ; 
Thy father was transfused into thy blood : 
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,^ 
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein. 

But if thy pre-existing soul 

Was formed, at first, with myriads more, 
It did through all the mighty poets roll, 

Who Greek or Latin laurels wore. 
And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.^ 

If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind ! 

Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore : 

Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find. 

Than was the beauteous frame she left behind : 
Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. 

May we presume to say, that, at thy birth. 
New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth? 

For sure the milder planets did combine 

On thy auspicious horoscope to shine. 

And e'en the most malicious were in trine.* 

Thy brother-angels at thy birth 

Strung each his lyre and tuned it high, 

That all the people of the sky 
Might know a poetess was born on earth. 

And then, if ever, mortal ears 
Had heard the music of the spheres. 

And if no clustering swarm of bees 
On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew, 

1 inheritance 

2 hereditary disposition 

3 Dryden here pays a lofty compliment to the subject of his verse by 
declaring that, if the doctrine of metempsychosis be true, the soul of Mrs, 
Killigrew must be identical with that of Sappho. 

"* trine,/.*?, the aspect of planets distant 120° from one another. The poet 
was credulous of the pretensions of judicial astrology. 



80 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

'Twas that such vulgar miracles 

Heaven had not leisure to renew : 
For all thy blest fraternity of love 
Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above. 

Now all those charms, that blooming grace, 
The well-proportioned shape, and beauteous face. 
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes ; 
In earth the much-lamented virgin lies. 

Not wit, nor piety could fate prevent ; 

Nor was the cruel destiny content 

To finish all the murder at a blow. 

To sweep at once her life and beauty too ; 
But, like a hardened felon, took a pride 

To work more mischievously slow, 

And plundered first, and then destroyed.^ 
O double sacrilege on things divine. 
To rob the relic, and deface the shrine ! 

But thus Orinda '^ died : 
Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate ; 
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate. 

Meantime her warlike brother on the seas 
His waving streamers to the winds displays. 

And vows for his return with vain devotion pays. 
Ah, generous youth, that wish forbear. 
The winds too soon will waft thee here ! 
Slack all thy sails, and fear to come ; 

Alas ! thou know'st not thou art wrecked at home ! 

No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face. 

Thou hast already had her last embrace ; 

But look aloft, and if thou kenn'st from far 

Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star, 

1 Mrs. Killigrew died of the small-pox. 

'^ Mrs. Katherine Philips, a contemporary poetess. 



CONTEMPORARY SONGS 8l 

If any sparkles than the rest more bright ; 
'T is she that shines in that propitious ^ hght ! 

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, 

To raise the nations under ground : 

When in the valley of Jehoshaphat, 
The judging God shall close the book of fate ; 

And there the last assizes keep, 

For those who wake and those who sleep : . . . 
The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, 
And foremost from the tomb shall bound. 
For they are covered with the lightest ground ; 
And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing. 
Like mountain larks, to the new morning sing. 
There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shalt go, 
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show. 
The way which thou so well hast learnt below. 



THREE CONTEMPORARY SONGS 

I. The Retreat 

Happy those early days, when I 
Shined in my angel-infancy ! 
Before I understood this place 
Appointed for my second race, 
Or taught my soul to fancy aught 
But a white, celestial thought ; 
When yet I had not walked above 
A mile or two from my first love. 
And looking back, at that short space 
Could see a gHmpse of His bright face ; 

1 The rising of the constellation of the Pleiades was looked upon by the 
ancients as an indication of safe navigation. 



82 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

When on some gilded cloud or flower 

My gazing soul would dwell an hour, 

And in those weaker glories spy 

Some shadows of eternity ; 

Before I taught my tongue to wound 

My conscience with a sinful sound, 

Or had the black art to dispense 

A several sin to every sense, 

But felt through all this fleshly dress 

Bright shoots of everlastingness. 

O how I long to travel back. 
And tread again that ancient track ! 
That I might once more reach that plain 
Where first I left my glorious train ; 
From whence th' enlightened spirit sees 
That shady City of Palm-trees ! 
But ah ! my soul with too much stay 
Is drunk, and staggers in the way : — 
Some men a forward motion love, 
But I by backward steps would move ; 
And, when this dust falls to the urn. 
In that same state I came, return. 

Henry Vaughan 



II. A Supplication 

Awake, awake, my lyre ! 
And tell thy" silent master's humble tale 

In sounds that may prevail ; 
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire : 

Though so exalted she 

And I so low^ly be, 
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony. 



CONTEMPORARY SONGS 83 

Hark ! how the strings awake : 
And, though the moving hand approach not near, 

Themselves with awful fear 
A kind of numerous trembling make. 

Now all thy forces try ; 

Now all thy charms apply ; 
Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye. 

Weak lyre ! thy virtue sure 
Is useless here, since thou art only found 

To cure, but not to wound, 
And she to wound, but not to cure. 

Too weak, too, wilt thou prove 

My passion to remove ; 
Physic to other ills, thou 'rt nourishment to love. 

Sleep, sleep again, my lyre ! 
For thou canst never tell my humble tale 

In sounds that will prevail, 
Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire ; 

All thy vain mirth lay by, 

Bid thy strings silent lie. 
Sleep, sleep again, my lyre, and let thy master die. 

Abraham Cowley 



III. Song of the Emigrants in Bermuda 

Where the remote Bermudas ride 
In the ocean's bosom unespied. 
From a small boat that rowed along 
The listening winds received this song : 

" What should we do but sing His praise 
That led us through the watery maze. 



84 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

Where He the huge sea monsters wracks, 

That hft the deep upon their backs, 

Unto an isle so long unknown, 

And yet far kinder than our own ? 

He lands us on a grassy stage. 

Safe from the storm's and prelate's rage : 

He gave us this eternal spring 

Which here enamels everything, 

And sends the fowls to us in care 

On daily visits through the air. 

He hangs in shades the orange bright 

Like golden lamps in a green night. 

And does in the pomegranates close 

Jewels more rich than Ormus shows : 

He makes the figs our mouths to meet. 

And throws the melons at our feet ; 

But apples plants of such a price 

No tree could ever bear them twice. 

With cedars chosen by His hand 

From Lebanon He stores the land. . . . 

He cast (of which we rather boast) 

The gospel's pearl upon our coast ; 

And in these rocks for us did frame 

A temple where to sound His name. 

O let our voice His praise exalt 

Till it arrive at heaven's vault, 

Which then perhaps, rebounding, may 

Echo beyond the Mexique bay ! " 

Thus sung they in the English boat 
A holy and a cheerful note : 
And all the way, to guide their chime, 
With falling oars they kept the time. 

Andrew Marvell 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 85 




^f^i^!^ /li/m^^ 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 

Joseph Hall, 1 574-1656, Bishop of Norwich; theologian; author of 

'• Divine Meditations." 
John Selden, 1 584-1654, politician and antiquarian; his best thought 

is embodied in his "Table Talk." 
Izaak Walton, 1593-1683, left several brief biographies, and " The 

Complete Angler." 
Sir William Davenant, 1605-1668, poet, controversialist and drama- 
tist ; his best-known poem is " Gondibert." 
Sir Thomas Browne, 1605-1682, physician, and theologian; author 

of •• Essays on Vulgar Errors " and other works. 
Thomas Fuller, 1608-1661, English clergyman; his more iniportant 

works are " Church History," and " The Worthies of England and 

Wales." 
Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, 1608- 1674, Lord Chancellor 

of England ; wrote " A History of the Great Rebellion." 
James Harrington, 1611-1677, diplomatist and political philosopher; 

author of " A Project for the Estal^lishment of a Republic," 

" Oceana," and other works. 



S6 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Samuel Butler, 1612-16S0, famous as the author of " Hudibras," a 
poetical burlesque upon the absurdities and fanaticisms of the 
republicans of that time, and particularly of the extravagances of 
the Presbyterians. 

Jeremy Taylor, 16 13-1667, eminent and eloquent Anglican theolo- 
gian and bishop; his sermons were learned and powerful, and 
are regarded as of the highest rhetorical excellence; of his works 
those most read are his " Holy Living '' and '• Holy Dying." 

Richard Baxter, 1615-1691, learned theologian, and defender of 
religious liberty; prolific writer; his most famous book is "The 
Saints' Everlasting Rest.'" 

Abraham Cowley, 1618-1667, poet and essayist; translator of the 
odes of Anacreon ; author of the epic poem '• Davideis." See 
" A Supplication," page 82. 

Andrew Marvell, 1 620-1 678, diplomatist and poet; friend of Mil- 
ton; wrote '• Thoughts in a Garden," and many short poems. See 
the " Song of the Emigrants in Bermuda," page 83. 

Algernon Sidney, 1621-1683, republican controversialist; his best- 
known work is " Discourses on Government." 

Henry Vaughan, 1 621-1695, wrote many devotional poems. See 
'•The Retreat,'" page 81. 

John Bunyan, 1628- 1688, religious enthusiast and preacher; left, 
among other writings, " Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners," 
autobiographical in character; "The Holy War ;" and his cele- 
brated allegory " Pilgrim's Progress." 

Samuel Pepys, 1632-1713, secretary to the English Admiralty Board ; 
famous for his " Diary," written in cipher, which affords a wonder- 
ful picture of the state of society in his day. 

John Locke, 1632-1704, politician, theologian, moral philosopher, 
and essayist ; his more important works are " A Treatise on Civil 
Government," " Letters on Toleration," " Essay on Education," and 
especially his " Essay on the Human Understanding." 

William Wycherley, 1640-17 15, left several comedies, among them 
'•The Country Wife" and "The Plain Dealer." 

Sir Isaac Newton, 1642-1727, mathematician and philosopher; his 
"Treatise on Optics"' and his "Principles of Natural Philosophy" 
are the more important of his works. 

Gilbert Burnet, 1643-1715, Bishop of Salisbury; politician and 
divine; his best-known work is "A History of My Own Times." 

Thomas Otway, 1651-1685, tragic dramatist, and author of "The 
Orphan " and " Venice Preserved." 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY iVRITERS 



«7 



Nathaniel Lee, 165 7-1 691, author of eleven tragedies, the best known 
of which are ''The Rival Queens " and " The Death of Alexander." 

William Congreve, 1670 -1729, comic dramatist; among his more 
familiar plays are "The Old Bachelor," "Love for Love," "The 
Mourning Bride," and " The Way of the World." 




88 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



IV 

LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

SWIFT — BURNS 

"pNGLISH literature of the eighteenth century has 
-*-— ^ certain broad characteristics which easily set it off, 
as a whole, as something very different from all that had 
gone before it. We have already seen that English prose 
gave, in the essays of Dryden, some signs of what it was 
to become. This writer died in I/OI, and to those who 
succeeded him in the century then opening, it remained 
to develop and fix the form of our prose literary ex- 
pression. Verse, to be sure, plays an important part in 
the literature of the eighteenth century, but it does not 
rule the imaginations of its writers, it is only imagination's 
servant. Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden, each in his 
time, was easily predominant over his contemporaries ; but 
the characteristic figures of the literature of the last 
century are not its poets, but its prose writers, — Swift, 
Addison, Richardson, Gibbon, Fielding, and Johnson. 
Swift was a witty rhymester, and Johnson could make 
verses, but neither of these was, or thought himself, a 
poet. Roughly speaking, then, the prime distinction of 
eighteenth-century literature was its mastery of the prose 
form as a vehicle of general thought. Prose had been an- 
tiquated and without any accepted standard of excellence ; 
it was left by the writers of the last century in the finished 
form of present usage. 

Two instrumentalities contributed chiefly to this : one 
of them was the introduction of periodical literature, and 



LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



the other was the appearance of the reahstic novel. One 
of the most beneficent results of the Revolution of 1688 
was that it brought about the freedom of the press. The 
ten years succeeding the abolition of state censorship saw 
the publication in London of a score of little weekly and 
semi-weekly papers, in themselves of little account, yet 
showing an awakening intellectual appetite for something 
that the decaying stage could not supply. Reading, it 
seemed, was no longer to 
be exclusively a privilege 
of the polite few. 

In 1702 the first English 
daily paper, such as it was, 
made its appearance. It 
was of meager proportions, 
hardly more than a leaflet, 
and its text was made up 
of gossip of court and town, 
a variety of small-talk, and 

some few scraps of news. ^^^*^^.JM^.\ \^^^^iJM? 

Then came De Foe with 
his Weekly Review de- 
voted mainly to politics, 
and then Steele with The Jh y ^ J^ >^ 

Tatler and The Spectator. ^ ^ ^^ r^ T^^^^ 
To the latter both Steele 

and Addison contributed in essays dealing lightly with 
an endless variety of subjects, but especially with those 
of a social and literary nature. The most famous of 
Addison's contributions to TJie Spectator were his " Sir 
Roger de Coverley " papers, into which were woven 
many charming little scenes of real life. The circula- 
tion of TJie Spectator increased from three thousand to 
thirty thousand in the three years of the paper's exist- 
ence ; and as each copy of it had many readers, it would 




90 



C/ITHCART'S LITERARY READER 



be hard to overestimate its favorable influence upon the 
manners, habits, and thought of that time. Steele, at a 
later day, published The Guardian, for which both Pope 
and Addison wrote, and Swift edited The Examiner. Be- 
tween these and Dr. Johnson's Rambler, forty years later, 
more than a hundred periodical papers were issued in 
London, most of them of little, a few of them of consid- 
erable, influence, but all of them contributory to the 
establishment of English prose and to the difl"usion of 

information amongst a 
reading public then for 
the first time coming 
into being. Johnson 
founded The Rambler 
in 1750, and conducted 
it, almost unaided, for 
two years. His Idler 
consisted of a series of 
papers contributed by 
him a few years later to 
the columns of the Lon- 
don Chronicle. From 
these little beginnings 
have grown up the 
modern new^spaper 
and the whole of pe- 
riodical literature. 
The only one of 
De Foe's romances which survives as a classic is his 
"Robinson Crusoe," published in 1719. The modern 
novel, the romance of the afl"ections, had its rise with 
Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett. Richardson produced 
" Pamela" in 1740, "Clarissa Harlowe" in 1748, and " Sir 
Charles Grandison" six years later. Fielding published 
"Joseph Andrews" in 1742, "Tom Jones" in 1749, and 




LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 91 



''Amelia" in 1751. Smollett's novels appeared between 
the years 1748 and 1771. All of these works had ex- 
traordinary popularity; but with the exception of Gold- 
smith's " Vicar of Wakefield," no novel of a high order of 
excellence followed them until the time of Sir Walter Scott. 

A little later than this remarkable group of novelists 
there appeared another trio equally remarkable, but in 
a different department of literature, that of history, in the 
persons of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Hume was an 
essayist and a philosopher 
as well as an historian. 
Gibbon is admitted to have 
produced the greatest his- 
torical work of his century. 
Robertson, though the pos- 
sessor of an excellent style, 
is now but little read. The 
influence of these histori- 
ans, especially that of Gib- 
bon, upon English style 
was profound. 

There was in this period 
no school of dramatic lit- 
erature, and only a few 
plays appeared that are of 
notable merit. Addison's 

** Cato " is never acted, and seldom read. Goldsmith's 
''She Stoops to Conquer," and Sheridan's "Rivals" and 
" School for Scandal " are almost the only plays of 
the century that stand out above the general level of 
mediocrity. 

Verse was abundant, poetry rare. The spirit of the age 
was unromantic, and whatever is merely practical takes on 
the prose form. The first poet of the century was Pope, 
the last was Burns. Between them were Cowper and Gray, 




92 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

both of them meditative, and out of harmony with the 
time. *' It is more difficult," says Palgrave, " to charac- 
terize the Enghsh poetry of the eighteenth century than 
that of any other. For it was not only an age of spon- 
taneous transition, but it included such vast contempo- 
raneous differences as lie between Pope and Collins, Burns 
and Cowper. Yet we may clearly trace three leading 
moods or tendencies, — the aspects of courtly or educated 
life, represented by Pope and carried to exhaustion by 
his followers; the poetry of nature and of man, viewed 
through a cultivated, and at the same time an impassioned 
frame of mind, by Collins and Gray ; lastly, the study of 
vivid and simple narrative, including natural description, 
begun by Gay and Thomson, pursued by Burns and others 
in the north, and established in England by Goldsmith, 
Percy, Crabbe, and Cowper. Great varieties in style 
accompanied these diversities in aim. Poets could not 
always distinguish the manner suitable for subjects so far 
apart; and the union of the language of courtly and of 
common life, exhibited most conspicuously by Burns, has 
given a tone to the poetry of that century which is best 
explained by reference to its historical origin." 

Speaking generally of the literature of this age, we may 
say that, while it fell short of the highest intellectual beauty, 
it yet had great vitality and success, and that it was of 
cultivated form and remarkable fullness and variety. 



SM/IFT 



93 



SWIFT 

1 667- 1 745 

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, in November, 1667, and died 
in October, 1745. At Dublin University, where he was matriculated, Swift 
distinguished himself by his contempt for college laws and neglect of his 
studies ; and only by special grace did he receive his degree of B. A., in 1685. 
He entered the family of Sir William Temple in the capacity of secretary. 




^maU: ^fi^- 



In the same household "Stella," immortalized in Swift's writings, was a 
dependant. " Stella " was a Miss Hester Johnson, whose tutor Swift after- 
wards became, and to whom, many years later, he was privately married. 
In 1694 Swift was admitted to deacon's orders, and a few years later went to 
Ireland as chaplain to Lord Berkeley. Here he occupied various ecclesi- 
astical offices, and in 17 13 was made Dean of St. Patrick's. He began his 
career in literature as a writer of political tracts, and was secretly employed 
by the government to write in its behalf. In 1704 he published "The Tale 



94 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

of a Tub." From that time till 1725 he lived in England, and was mainly 
engaged in political controversy. In 1726 appeared "Gulliver's Travels," 
and at frequent intervals thereafter his other writings, prose and poetry. 

In 1740 he evinced the first symptoms of the madness which clouded his 
closing years. From early manhood Swift was subject to fits of vertigo ac- 
companied by deafness, and it was his daily custom to take prolonged walks 
in the hope of warding off these attacks. It is charitable to suppose that his 
extraordinary arrogance, his morbid vanity, and his overbearing and passion- 
ate disposition were to some extent attributable to bodily afflictions. Swift's 
character was compounded of contradictory traits. What was needful econ- 
omy in his youth approached to avarice in his age ; yet he was habitually 
an alms-giver, and devised extensive charitable projects : he was so negligent 
of study at Dublin that his degree was grudgingly yielded to him ; yet so 
intense in later application and so finished in attainment that Oxford was 
glad to confer upon him a higher distinction. By nature indolent, he was 
scrupulous in his attention to the details of duty, however irksome ; though 
constitutionally a satirist and scoffer, there can be no question that he was 
sincerely devout ; and while affecting a dislike of Ireland and the Irish, he 
said truly of himself, as Dr. Johnson writes, that " Ireland was his debtor. 
Nor can the Irish be charged with ingratitude to their benefactor ; for they 
reverenced him as a guardian, and obeyed him as a dictator." 

As to Swift's rank as a writer, it is not easy to define it ; but of his extra- 
ordinary abilities there is no room for doubt. He was, perhaps, the greatest 
master of satire that has ever written in English. His originality is remark- 
able, — probably no writer of his time borrowed so little from his predeces- 
sors, — and his versatility — for he succeeded in every department of litera- 
ture that he attempted — is not less wonderful. All things considered, his 
" Gulliver's Travels " must be regarded as his greatest work, though sev- 
eral eminent critics, including Hallam, have found it inferior to "The Tale 
of a Tub." Perhaps these words of Lord Jeffrey best embody the general 
estimate of Dean Swift as a literary man : " In humor and in irony, and in 
the talent of debasing and defiling what he hated, we join with the world 
in thinking the Dean of St. Patrick's without a rival." We give an extract 
from "Gulliver's Travels " which illustrates his best manner as a satirist. 



PHILOSOPHERS AND PROJECTORS 

I WAS received very kindly by the warden, and went for many 
days to the academy. Every room hath in it one or more 
projectors, and I beheve I could not be in fewer than five 
hundred rooms. 



SH/IFT 95 

The first man I saw was of a meager aspect, with sooty hands 
and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several 
places. His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same color. 
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams 
out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically 
sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. 
He told me he did not doubt in eight years more that he should 
be able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a 
reasonable rate ; but he complained that the stock was low, 
and entreated me to give him something as an encouragement 
to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season 
for cucumbers. I made him a small present, for my lord had 
furnished me with money, on purpose, because he knew their 
practice of begging from all who go to see them. 

I saw another at work to calcine^ ice into gunpowder, who 
likewise showed me a treatise he had written concerning the 
malleability of fire, which he intended to publish. 

There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a 
new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof and 
workitig downw^ards to the foundation ; which he justified to me 
by the like practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and 
the spider. 

In another apartment I was highly pleased with a projector 
who had found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to 
save the charges of ploughs, cattle, and labor. The method is 
this : in an acre of ground, you bury, at six inches distance, and 
eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other 
masts ^ or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest ; then 
you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where 
in a few days they will root up the whole ground in search of 
their food, and make it fit for sowing. It is true, upon experi- 
ment they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had 
little or no crop. However, it is not doubted that this invention 
may be capable of great improvement. 

^ to pulverize by means of heat 

2 mas^ consists of beechnuts and acorns ; this word has no plural 



96 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

I went into another room, where the walls and ceilings were all 
hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the artist 
to go in and out. At my entrance he called aloud to me not to 
disturb his webs. He lamented the fatal mistake the world had 
been so long in, of using silk-worms, while we had such plenty of 
domestic insects who infinitely excelled the former, because they 
understood how to weave as well as spin. And he proposed, 
further, that by employing spiders, the charge of dyeing silks 
would be wholly saved ; whereof I was fully convinced when he 
showed me a vast number of flies most beautifully colored, where- 
with he fed his spiders ; assuring us that the webs would take 
a tincture from them ; and as he had them of all hues, he hoped 
to fit everybody's fancy, as soon as he could find proper food for 
the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous matter, to give 
a consistence to the threads. 

There was an astronomer who had undertaken to place a 
sun-dial upon the great weathercock on the town- house, by 
adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun, 
so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turning of the 
winds. 

I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my 
reader with all the curiosities 1 observed, being studious of 
brevity. 

I had hitherto only seen one side of the academy, the other 
being appropriated to the advancers of speculative learning, of 
whom I shall say something when I have mentioned one illustri- 
ous person more, who is called among them the universal artist. 
He told us he had been thirty years employing his thoughts for 
the improvement of human life. He had two large rooms full 
of wonderful curiosities, and fifty men at work ; some were con- 
densing air into a dry tangible substance, by extracting the niter, 
and letting the aqueous or fluid particles percolate ; others, soft- 
ening marble for pillows and pin-cushions ; others, petrifying the 
hoofs of a living horse to preserve them from foundering. The 
artist himself was at that time busy upon two great designs : first, 
to sow land with chaff, wherein he afiirmed the true seminal 



SIVIFT 97 

virtue to be contained, as he demonstrated by several experiments 
which I was not skillful enough to comprehend. The other was, 
by a certain composition of gums, minerals, and vegetables, out- 
wardly applied, to prevent the growth of wool upon two young 
lambs ; and he hoped in a reasonable time to propagate the breed 
of naked sheep all over the kingdom. 

We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, 
as I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning 
resided. 

The first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty 
pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look earn- 
estly upon a frame which took up the greatest part of both the 
length and breadth of the room, he said, perhaps I might wonder 
to see him employed in a project for improving speculative knowl- 
edge by practical and mechanical operations. But the world 
would soon be sensible of its usefulness, and he flattered himself 
that a more noble, exalted thought never sprang in any other 
man's head. Every one knew how laborious the usual method is 
of attaining to arts and sciences, whereas, by his contrivance, the 
most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little 
bodily labor, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law, 
mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from 
genius or study. He then led me to the frame, about the sides 
whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, 
placed in the middle of the room. The superficies ^ was com- 
posed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but 
some larger than others. They were all linked together by 
slender wires. These bits of wood were covered on every square 
with paper pasted on them ; and on these papers were written 
all the words of their language in their several moods, tenses, and 
declensions, but without any order. The professor then desired 
me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work. The 
pupils, at his command, took each of them hold of an iron handle, 
whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame, and 

1 the surface ; the exterior part or face of a thing 
7 



98 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words 
was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the 
lads to read the several lines softly as they appeared upon the 
frame, and where they found three or four words together that 
might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remain- 
ing boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or 
four times, and at every turn the engine was so contrived, that 
the words shifted into new places as the square bits of wood 
moved upside down. 

Six hours a day the young students were employed in this 
labor ; and the professsor showed me several volumes in large 
folio, already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended 
to piece together, and out of those rich materials to give the 
world a complete body of all arts and sciences, which, however, 
might be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would 
raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames 
in Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common 
their several collections. 

He assured me that this invention had employed all his 
thoughts from his youth ; that he had emptied the whole vocab- 
ulary into his frame, and made the strictest computation of the 
general proportion there is in books, between the numbers of 
particles, nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech. 

I made my humblest acknowledgments to this illustrious person 
for his great communicativeness, and promised, if ever I had the 
good fortune to return to my native country, that I would do him 
justice, as the sole inventor of this wonderful machine, the form 
and contrivance of which I desired leave to delineate upon paper. 
I told him, although it were the custom of our learned in Europe 
to steal inventions from each other, who had thereby at least this 
advantage, that it became a controversy which was the right 
owner, yet I would take such caution that he should have the 
honor entire without a rival. 

We next went to the school of languages, where three pro- 
fessors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own 
country. 



SIVIFT 99 

The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyl- 
lables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles ; because, 
in reality, all things imaginable are but nouns. 

The other was a scheme for entirely abolishing all words 
whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point 
of health as well as brevity : for it is plain that eve'ry word we 
speak is in some degree a diminution of our lungs by corrosion, 
and consequently contributes to the shortening of our lives. An 
expedient was therefore offered, that since words are only names 
for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry 
about them such things as were necessary to express the particular 
business they are to discourse on. And this invention would 
certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of 
the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and 
illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion, unless they 
might be allowed the hberty to speak with their tongues, after 
the manner of their forefathers ; such constant irreconcilable 
enemies to science are the common people. 



The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, 
is owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words ; for 
whoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, 
will be apt in speaking to hesitate upon the choice of both ; 
whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one 
set of words to clothe them in ; and these are always ready at 
the mouth ; so people come faster out of church when it is almost 
empty, than when a crowd is at the door. 



An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of 
money and hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked 
" Why he would hoard up those round shining things that he 
could make no use of ? " "Why," said the jackdaw, " my master 
has a whole chest full, and makes no more use of them than I." 



[OO 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



ADDISON 

1672-1719 

Joseph Addison was born in 1672, and died in 17 19. His name is a 
synonym of rhetorical elegance ; and to say that the style of a composition 
is '* Addisonian " is to give it the highest praise for finish and classic regu- 
larity. Addison's style, however admirable it may have seemed to his con- 




J^. Jc/^A^zr% 



temporaries, cannot safely be taken as a model by a writer of the present 
day ; it is cold and elaborate, and conveys an idea of formality which is not 
in harmony with the spirit of later literature. Addison's fame as a writer 
rests mainly on his contributions to The Spectator, The Tatler, and The 
Guardian, — periodicals which clearly illustrate the manners and morals of 
the time^ and which contain many of the finest specimens of English literary 
workmanship. To these periodicals Addison was the principal contributor, 
and with these his name will have its most enduring association. He was a 
poet and a dramatist ; but except perhaps his tragedy of" Cato," his efforts 



ADDISON lOI 

in these departments of literature are not held in very high esteem by the 
critics of to-day. Addison led an easy and somewhat luxurious life. He 
held a high otfice under government, had an ample income, and in the 
literary society of that brilliant period occupied, by general acquiescence, 
a foremost rank. No student of English literature can afford to neglect 
the essays of Addison, which illustrate the very best literary achievements 
of English writers in delicacy of sentiment and felicity of expression. 
The following estimate of Addison is from the pen of Macaulay : — 
"As an observer of life, of manners, of all shades of human character, he 
stands in the first class. And what he observed he had the art of communi- 
cating in two widely different ways. He could describe virtues, vices, habits, 
whims, as well as Clarendon. But he could do something better. He could 
call human beings into existence, and make them exhibit themselves. If we 
wish to find anything more vivid than Addison's best portraits, we must go 
either to Shakespeare or to Cervantes. 

" But what shall we say of Addison's humor, — of his sense of the ludi- 
crous ; of his power of awakening that sense in others, and of drawing mirth 
from incidents which occur every day, and from little peculiarities of temper 
and manner such as may be found in every man ? We feel the charm. We 
give ourselves up to it. But we strive in vain to analyze it. 

" The manner of Addison is as remote from that of Swift as from that of 
Voltaire. He neither laughs out like the French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, 
throws a double portion of severity into his countenance while laughing inly; 
but preserves a look peculiarly his own, — a look of demure severity, dis- 
turbed only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible elevation 
of the brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. We own that the 
humor of Addison is, in our opinion, of a more delicious flavor than the 
humor of either Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, at least, is certain, that both 
Swift and Voltaire have been successfully mimicked, and that no man has 
yet been able to mimic Addison. 

" But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from Swift, from Voltaire, 
from almost all the other great masters of ridicule, is the grace, the noble- 
ness, the moral purity, which we find even in his merriment. Severity, 
gradually hardening and darkening into misanthropy, characterizes the works 
of Swift. The nature of Voltaire was, indeed, not inhuman ; but he vener- 
ated nothing. Neither in the masterpieces of art, nor in the purest examples 
of virtue ; neither in the Great First Cause, nor in the awful enigma of the 
grave, could he see anything but subjects for drollery. The more solemn 
and august the theme, the more monkey-like was his grimacing and chatter- 
ing. The mirth of Swift is the mirth of Mephistopheles ; the mirth of Vol- 
taire is the mirth of Puck. If, as Soame Jenyns oddly imagined, a portion 
of the happiness of seraphim and just men made perfect be derived from an 
exquisite perception of the ludicrous, their mirth must surely be none other 
than the mirth of Addison, — a mirth consistent with tender compassion for 
all that is frail, and with profound reverence for all that is sublime." 



102 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



INDIAN TRADITIONS OF THE WORLD OF SPIRITS 

The American Indians believe that all creatures have souls, not 
only men and women, but brutes, vegetables, nay, even the most 
inanimate things, as stocks and stones. They believe the same 
of all the works of art, as of knives, boats, looking-glasses ; and 
that, as any of these things perish, their souls go into another 
world, which is inhabited by the ghosts of men and women. 
For this reason they always place by the corpse of their dead 
friend a bow and arrow, that he may make use of the souls of 
them in the other world, as he did of their wooden bodies in 
this. How absurd soever such an opinion as this may appear, 
our European philosophers have maintained several notions al- 
together as improbable. I shall only instance Albertus Magnus,^ 
who in his dissertation upon the loadstone, obser\dng that fire will 
destroy its magnetic virtues, tells us that he took particular no- 
tice of one as it lay glowing amidst an heap of burning coals, 
and that he perceived a certain blue vapor to arise from it, 
which he believed might be the substantial form ; that is, in our 
West-Indian phrase, the soul of the magnet. 

There is a tradition among the Indians, that one of their 
countrymen descended in a vision to the great repository of 
souls, or, as we call it here, to the other world ; and that upon 
his return he gave his friends a distinct account of everything he 
saw among those regions of the dead. A friend of mine, whom 
I have formerly mentioned, prevailed upon one of the inter- 
preters of the Indian kings, to inquire of them, if possible, what 
tradition they have among them of this matter; which, as w^ell 
as he could learn by those many questions w^hich he asked them 
at several times, was in substance as follows. 

The visionary,^ whose name was Marraton, after having trav- 
eled for a long space under an hollow mountain, arrived at 
length on the confines of this world of spirits, but could not enter 

1 A Dominican friar and bishop of the twelfth century. He was an 
eminent mechanician and mathematician, and is said to have been a searcher 
after the philosopher's stone. ^ i. e. the dreamer 



ADDISON 103 

it by reason of a thick forest made up of bushes, brambles, and 
pointed thorns, so interwoven with one another, that it was im- 
possible to find a passage through it. Whilst he was looking 
about for some track or pathway that might be worn in any part 
of it, he saw a huge lion couched ^ under the side of it, who kept 
his eye upon him in the same posture as when he watches for 
his prey. The Indian immediately started back, whilst the lion 
rose with a spring, and leaped towards him. Being wholly desti- 
tute of all other weapons, he stooped down to take up a huge 
stone in his hand ; but to his infinite surprise grasped nothing, 
and found the supposed stone to be only the apparition of one. 
If he was disappointed on this side, he was as much pleased on 
the other, when he found the lion, which had seized on his left 
shoulder, had no power to hurt him, and was only the ghost 
of that ravenous creature which it appeared to be. 

He no sooner got rid of his impotent enemy, but he marched 
up to the wood, and after having surveyed it for some time, en- 
deavored to press into one part of it that was a little thinner than 
the rest ; when again, to his great surprise, he found the bushes 
made no resistance, but that he walked through briers and bram- 
bles with the same ease as through the open air ; and, in short, 
that the whole wood was nothing else but a wood of shades. He 
immediately concluded that this huge thicket of thorns and brakes 
was designed as a kind of fence or quickset hedge to the ghosts 
it enclosed ; and that probably their soft substances might be torn 
by these subtle points and prickles, which were too weak to make 
any impressions in flesh and blood. With this thought he re- 
solved to travel through this intricate wood ; when by degrees he 
felt a gale of perfumes breathing upon him, that grew stronger 
and sweeter in proportion as he advanced. He had not pro- 
ceeded much farther, when he observed the thorns and briers to 
end, and give place to a thousand beautiful green trees covered 
with blossoms of the finest scents and colors, that formed a 
wilderness of sweets, and were a kind of lining to those rugged 
scenes which he had before passed through. As he was coming 

1 couchant, recumbent 



104 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

out of this delightful part of the wood, and entering upon the 
plains it enclosed, he saw several horsemen rushing by him, and 
a little while after heard the cry of a pack of dogs. He had not 
listened long before he saw the apparition of a milk-white steed, 
with a young man on the back of .it, advancing upon full stretch 
after the souls of about an hundred beagles, that were hunting 
down the ghost of an hare, which ran away before them with an 
unspeakable swiftness. As the man on the milk-white steed came 
by him, he looked upon him very attentively, and found him to 
be the young prince Nicharagua, who died about half a year be- 
fore, and by reason of his great virtues was at that time lamented 
over all the western parts of America. 

He had no sooner got out of the wood, but he was entertained 
with such a landscape of flowery plains, green meadows, running 
streams, sunny hills, and shady vales, as were not to be repre- 
sented by his own expressions, nor, as he said, by the concep- 
tions of others. This happy region was peopled with innumerable 
swarms of spirits, who applied themselves to exercises and diver- 
sions, according as their fancies led them. Some of them were 
tossing the figure of a coit ^ ; others were pitching the shadow of 
a bar ; others were breaking ^ the apparition of a horse ; and 
multitudes employing themselves upon ingenious handicrafts with 
the souls of departed utensils, for that is the name which in the 
Indian language they give their tools when they are burned or 
broken. As he traveled through this delightful scene, he was very 
often tempted to pluck the flowers that rose everywhere about 
him in the greatest variety and profusion, having never seen sev- 
eral ^ of them . in his own country ; but he quickly found, that 
though they were objects of his sight, they were not liable to^ 
his touch. He at length came to the side of a great river, and 
being a good fisherman himself, stood upon the banks of it some 
time to look upon an angler that had taken a great many shapes 
of fishes, which lay flouncing up and down by him. 

I should have told my reader that this Indian had been for- 

^ quoit 3 having . . . several: Meaning? 

2 taming, disciplining ^ liable to, here usedin the sense of "subject to " 



ADDISON 105 

merly married to one of the greatest beauties of his country, by 
whom he had several children. This couple were so famous for 
their love and constancy to one another, that the Indians to this 
day, when they give a married man joy of his wife, wish they 
may live together like Marraton and Yaratilda. Marraton had 
not stood long by the fisherman, when he saw the shadow of his 
beloved Yaratilda, who had for some time fixed her eyes upon 
him before he discovered her. Her arms were stretched out 
towards him, floods of tears ran down her eyes ; her looks, her 
hands, her voice called him over to her ; and at the same time 
seemed to tell him that the river was impassable. Who can de- 
scribe the passion, made up of joy, sorrow, love, desire, aston- 
ishment, that rose in the Indian upon the sight of his dear 
Yaratilda? He could express it by nothing but his tears, which 
ran like a river down his cheeks as he looked upon her. He had 
not stood in this posture long, before he plunged into the stream 
that lay before him; and finding it to be nothing but the phan- 
tom of a river, walked on the bottom of it till he rose on the 
other side. At his approach Yaratilda flew into his arms, whilst 
Marraton wished himself disencumbered of that body which kept 
her from his embraces. After many questions and endearments 
on both sides, she conducted him to a bower which she had 
dressed with all the ornaments that could be met with in those 
blooming regions. She had made it gay beyond imagination, and 
was every day adding something new to it. As Marraton stood 
astonished at the unspeakable beauty of her habitation, and rav- 
ished with the fragrancy that came from every part of it, Yaratilda 
told him that she was preparing this bower for his reception, as 
well knowing that his piety to his God, and his faithful dealing 
towards men, would certainly bring him to that happy place 
whenever his life should be at an end. She then brought two 
of her children to him, who died some years before, and resided 
with her in the same delightful bower. 

The tradition tells us further, that he had afterwards a sight of 
those dismal habitations which are the portion of ill ^ men after 

1 evil 



I06 CAT H CART'S LITERARY READER 

death ; and mentions several molten seas of gold into which 
were plunged the souls of barbarous Europeans, who put to the 
sword so many thousands of poor Indians for the sake of that 
precious metal. But having already touched upon the chief 
points of this tradition, and exceeded the measure of my paper, 
I shall not give any further account of it. 



THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT 

The spacious firmament on high. 
With all the blue ethereal sky, 
And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 
Their great Original ^ proclaim. 
The unwearied sun, from day to day. 
Does his Creator's power display, 
And publishes to every land 
The work of an Almighty hand. 

Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
And, nightly, to the listening earth, 
Repeats the story of her birth ; 
While all the stars that round her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

What though, in solemn silence, all 
Move round the dark terrestrial ball? 
What though no real voice, nor sound, 
Amid their radiant orbs be found ? 
In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice ; 
Forever singing, as they shine, 
" The hand that made us is divine." 



1 Originator, Creator 



POPE 



107 



POPE 

1 688- 1 744 

Alexander Pope, the most eminent poet of his time, was born in 1688, 
and died in 1744. He inherited a considerable fortune and lived in studi- 
ous retirement in his villa at Twickenham. Afflicted with a bodily de- 
formity, concerning which he was keenly sensitive, he mingled but little in 




J.(fa]^ 



the great world, but contented himself with the society which sought him in 
his home. He was essentially a man of letters, giving his whole time and 
thought to literary pursuits. Notoriously petulant, a peculiarity which his 
feeble health goes far toward excusing, he was continually involved in quar- 
rels with contemporary writers; and some of his most brilliant verse was 
written under the inspiration of personal animosity. His most considerable 
work was the translation of Homer's " Iliad," which in some respects is 
unsurpassed by any previous or subsequent version. Of his original com- 



I08 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

positions "The Essay on Man " is that by which he is best known. From 
this work are taken the first two of our selections. 

Johnson, in his "Lives of the Poets," makes the following comparison 
between Pope and his great predecessor, Dryden : " Pope professed to 
have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was 
presented, he praised through his whole life with unvarying liberality ; and 
perhaps his character may receive some illustration if he be compared with 
his master. 

'' Integrity of understanding and nicety of discernment were not allotted 
in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's 
mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and 
the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never 
desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and professed to 
write, merely for the people ; and when he pleased others, he contented 
himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers ; he never 
attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend 
what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very 
little consideration. When occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured 
out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had 
passed the press, ejected it from his mind ; for when he had no pecuniary 
interest, he had no further solicitude. 

" Pope was not content to satisfy ; he desired to excel, and therefore 
always endeavored to do his best. He did not court the candor, but dared 
the judgment, of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from others, he 
showed none to himself- He examined lines and words with minute and 
punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable dili- 
gence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven. 

"Of genius — that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without 
which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert ; that energy which collects, 
combines, amplifies, and animates — the superiority must, with some hesita- 
tion, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical 
vigor Pope had only a little because Dryden had more ; for every other 
writer since Milton must give place to Pope ; and even of Dryden it must be 
said that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's 
performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion 
or extorted by domestic necessity. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled 
him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate 
all that study might produce or chance might supply. If the flights of 
Dryden, therefore, are higher. Pope continues longer on the wing. If of 
Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and 
constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below 
it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual 
delight." 



POPE 109 



THE PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN VINDICATED 

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, 

All but the page prescribed, their present state ; 

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know, 

Or who could suffer being here below ? 

The lamb thy riot ^ dooms to bleed to- day, 

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? 

Pleased to the last, he crops the iiowery food. 

And iicks the hand just raised to shed his blood. 

O bHndness to the future ! kindly given, 

That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven ; 

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 

A hero perish or a sparrow fall ; 

Atoms or systems into ruin hurled. 

And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 

Hope humbly, then ; with trembling pinions soar ; 
Wait the great teacher. Death ; and God adore. 
What future bliss. He gives not thee to know. 
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. 
Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; 
Man never is, but always to be blest ; 
The soul, uneasy and confined from home, 
Rests and expatiates- in a hfe to come. 

Lo the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind ; 
His soul proud Science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk ^ or milky way ; 
Yet simple Nature to his hope has given, 
Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven ; 
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced. 
Some happier island in the watery waste. 



1 feasting ; an obsolete meaning 

2 roves at will 

3 walk; /. e. track, — put for the courses of the planets 



no CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Where slaves once more their native land behold, 

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 

To BE, contents his natural desire, 

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire : 

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 

His faithful dog shall bear him company. 

Go, wiser thou ! and in thy scale of sense 
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ; 
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, 
Say, here He gives too little, there too much : 
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,^ 
Yet cry, if Man 's unhappy, God 's unjust ; 
If man alone engross not Heaven's high care, 
Alone made perfect here, immortal there : 
Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod, 
Rejudge His justice, be the god of God. 
In pride, in reasoning pride, our error Hes ; 
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. 
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, 
Men would be angels, angels would be gods. 
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell. 
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel : 
And who but wishes to revert ^ the laws 
Of order sins against th' Eternal Cause. 



GREATNESS 



Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
Fortune in men has some small difference made 
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade ; 
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned, 
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned. 

1 gratification ^ reverse 



POPE III 

'' What differ more," you cry, '' than crown and cowl? " 

I '11 tell you, friend ! a wise man and a fool. 

You '11 find, if once the monarch acts the monk. 

Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, 

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow : 

The rest is all but leather or prunella.^ 

Go ! if your ancient but ignoble blood 

Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, 

Go ! and pretend your family is young, 

Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. 

What can ennoble sots or slaves or cowards? 

Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards. 

Look next on greatness ! say where greatness lies ? 
"Where, but among the heroes and the wise?" 
Heroes are much the same, the point 's agreed, 
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede ; ^ 
The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find 
Or make an enemy of all mankind ! 
Not one looks backward, onward still he goes. 
Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose. 
No less alike the politic and wise ; 
All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes : 
Men in their loose unguarded hours they take. 
Not that themselves are wise, but others weak. 
But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat ; 
'T is phrase absurd to call a villain great : 
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave. 
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. 
Who noble ends by noble means obtains, 
Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains. 
Like good Aurehus ^ let him reign, or bleed ^ 
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed. 

1 a kind of woolen stuff 

2 The allusion is to Alexander the Great and Charles XII. of Sweden. 
^ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the Roman emperor 

^ bleed, perish, die 



112 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 



ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE 
LADYi 

What beckoning ghost along the moonhght shade 

Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade ? 

'T is she ! — but why that bleeding bosom gored, 

Why dimly gleams the visionary sword? 

O ever beauteous, ever friendly ! tell. 

Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well? 

To bear too tender, or too firm a heart? 

To act a lover's, or a Roman's part ? 

Is there no bright reversion - in the sky 

For those who greatly think, or bravely die ? 

Why bade ye else, ye Powers, her soul aspire 
Above the vulgar flight of low desire ? 
Ambition first spnmg from your blest abodes ; 
The glorious fault of angels and of gods ; 
Thence to their images on earth it flows. 
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows. 
Most souls, 't is true, but peep out once an age. 
Dull, sullen prisoners in the body's cage : 
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years 
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchers ; 
Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep. 
And, close confined to their own palace, sleep. 

From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) 
Fate snatched her early to the pitying sky. 

1 This Elegy, published in 17 17, is one of Pope's most consummate 
efforts, and in pathetic power surpasses any other poem of his. Much 
conjecture and investigation as to the identity of the "Unfortunate Lady" 
have resulted in the general conclusion among critics that the situation upon 
which the poem is based is fictitious. Yet certitude is lacking ; and consid- 
ering the gravity of the theme, and the fine ardor and delicate pathos of the 
piece, it is difficult to believe that art so perfect would disguise itself in need- 
less artifice. 

2 future reward 



POPE 

As into air the purer spirits flow, 
And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below ; 
So flew her soul to its congenial place, 
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. 

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, 
Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood ! 
See on these ruby lips the trembhng breath, 
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death : 
Cold is that breast which warmed the world before. 
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. 
Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball, 
Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall ; 
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits. 
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates. 
There passengers shall stand, and, pointing, say, 
(While the long funerals blacken all the way) 
" Lo these were they whose souls the Furies steeled. 
And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield. 
Thus unlamented pass the proud away, 
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day ! 
So perish all whose breast ne'er learned to glow 
For others' good, or melt at others' woe." 

What can atone, O ever-injured shade. 
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid ? 
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear 
Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier. 
•By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, 
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed. 
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned, 
By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned ! 
What though no friends in sable weeds appear. 
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year, 
And bear about the mockery of woe 
To midnight dances, and the public show? 
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace, 
Nor polished marble emulate thy face ? 
8 



113 



114 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

What though no sacred earth allow thee room, 
Nor hallowed dirge be muttered o'er thy tomb ? 
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest, 
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast : 
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, 
There the first roses of the year shall blow ; 
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade 
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made. 

So, peaceful, rests, without a stone, a name. 
What once had beauty, titles, wealth and fame. 
How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, 
To whom related, or by whom begot ; 
A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 
T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be ! 

Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung. 
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. 
E'en he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays. 
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays ; 
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part. 
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart, 
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er, 
The muse forgot, and thou be loved no more. 



ON THE POET GAY, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; 
In wit a man ; simplicity, a child : . . . 
Above temptation in a low estate. 
And uncorrupted e'en among the great : 
A safe companion, and an easy friend, 
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end — 
These are thy honors ! not that here thy bust 
Is mixed with heroes, or with kings thy dust 
■ But that the worthy and the good shall say, 
Striking their pensive bosoms, " Here lies Gay." 



FRANKLIN 



IIS 



FRANKLIN 

1 706-1 790 

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Mass., in the year 1706, the 
youngest son and the youngest child but two in a family of seventeen chil- 
dren. His father, who was a tallow-chandler by trade, at first designed his 
youngest son for the ministry of religion; and accordingly sent the lad for a 




year to the grammar-school of his native place, and afterwards for some time 
to a private instructor; but finding that his straitened means would not en- 
able him to carry out his first intention, he set the boy at work as an assistant 
in his own business. This employment was one that young Franklin found 
very irksome. He himself tells how he can not remember a time when he 
was unable to read, and how from his earliest years he was always "of a 
bookish inclination." Partly to gratify this inclination, and partly to make 



Il6 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

the most convenient disposition for his son, Franklin's father bound him 
apprentice, at the age of eleven, to an elder brother, James by name, who 
was a printer. For the five or six years following, Benjamin worked at his 
trade in his brother's office, devoting his leisure to reading, and especially to 
endeavors to perfect himself in the art of putting his thoughts on paper, of 
which he says he was " extremely ambitious." To his reading, at this time, 
of Cotton Mather's " Essays to do Good," he modestly attributes his lifelong 
inclination to works of utility and beneficence. 

During the years of his apprenticeship his brother James treated him 
with rigor, and even with cruelty. Of this, in old age, Franklin said : " I 
fancy his harsh and tyrannical treatment of me might have been a means 
of impressing me with that aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me 
through my whole life." At last the boy ran away, taking ship to New York, 
and thence to Philadelphia, where he heard there might be employment for 
him at his trade. This was in October, 1723. 

Being by nature prudent and by training thrifty, Franklin found himself 
at the age of thirty well established in business in the city of his adoption, 
and he now began to take an active interest in public affairs. His counsels 
were so sagacious and his services so useful that step by step he rose in 
popular esteem, holding in succession many offices of influence and trust, 
until in 1757 he was sent to London as the agent of the Pennsylvania Plan- 
tations. Here his labors in behalf of the people of Pennsylvania were so 
shrewdly directed and so influential that one after another all the Ameri- 
can colonies put him in charge of their interests. Unable, however, to avert 
the conflict which he foresaw and foretold, Franklin returned home on the 
eve of the Revolutionary War. But his stay in America was short, for he 
undertook a mission to Paris, as the agent of the revolted colonies, to secure 
the alliance and support of France. This accomplished, he took up his 
residence in that country as American ambassador, remaining till he had 
negotiated the treaty in which the independence of the United States was 
acknowledged. Franklin died in Philadelphia in April, 1790. 

His works are voluminous, consisting of letters on philosophical subjects, 
on which a large part of his fame rests, essays and tracts, moral, historical, 
political, and commercial, and his Autobiography, from which our selection 
is taken. Lord Jeffrey thus characterizes Franklin : — 

"In one point of view, the name of Franklin must be considered as 
standing higher than any of the others which illustrated the eighteenth 
century. Distinguished as a statesman, he was equally great as a philoso- 
pher, thus uniting in himself a rare degree of excellence in both those pur- 
suits, to excel in either of which is deemed the highest praise. Nor was his 
pre-eminence in the one pursuit of that doubtful kind which derives its 
value from such an uncommon conjunction. His efforts in each were suffi- 
cient to have made him greatly famous had he done nothing in the other. 
Much as has been given to the world of this great man's works, each succes- 
sive publication increases our esteem for his virtues, and our admiration of 



FRANKLIN 11/ 

his understanding. The distinguishing feature of his understanding was 
great soundness and sagacity, combined with extraordinary quickness of 
penetration. He possessed also a strong and lively imagination, which gave 
his speculations, as well as his conduct, a singularly original turn. The 
peculiar charm of his writings, and his great merit, also, in action, consisted 
in the clearness with which he saw his object, and the bold and steady pur- 
suit of it by the surest and the shortest road. He never suffered himself in 
conduct to be turned aside by the seductions of interest or vanity, or to be 
scared by hesitation and fear, or to be misled by the arts of his adversaries. 
Neither did he, in discussion, ever go out of his way in search of ornament, 
or stop short from dread of the consequences. He never could be caught, 
in short, acting absurdly or writing nonsensically. At all times, and in 
everything he undertook, the vigor of an understanding at once original and 
practical was distinctly perceivable. 

" His style has all the vigor and even conciseness of Swift, without any of 
his harshness. It is in no degree more flowery, yet both elegant and lively. 
The wit, or rather humor, which prevails in his works, varies with the sub- 
ject. Sometimes he is bitter and sarcastic ; oftener gay, and even droll, re- 
minding us in this respect far more frequently of Addison than of Swift, as 
might be naturally expected from his admirable temper or the happy turn of 
his imagination. When he rises into vehemence or severity, it is only when 
his country or the rights of men are attacked, or when the sacred ties of 
humanity are violated by unfeeling or insane rulers. There is nothing more 
delightful than the constancy with which those amiable feelings, those sound 
principles, those truly profound views of human affairs make their appear- 
ance at every opportunity, whether the immediate subject be speculative or 
practical, of a political or of a more general description." 



REMEMBRANCES OF MY BOYHOOD ^ 

I 

Dear Son,^ — I have ever had pleasure in obtainmg any Httle 
anecdotes of my ancestors. Imagining it may be equally agree- 
able to you to know the circumstances of my life, I sit down 
to write them for you. To which I have besides some other 
inducements. Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity 
in which I was born and bred to a state of affluence and some 

1 from Franklin's Autobiography, begun in 1771 
'^ William Franklin, then Governor of New Jersey 



Il8 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through 
Hfe with a considerable share of fehcity, the conducing means 
I made use of (which with the blessing of God so well suc- 
ceeded), my posterity may like to know, as they may find some 
of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be 
imitated. , . . 

Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination, so natural in old 
men, to be talking of themselves and their own past actions ; 
and I shall indulge it without being tiresome to others who 
through respect to age might conceive themselves obliged to 
give me a hearing ; since this may be read or not as any one 
pleases. And lastly (I may as well confess it, since my denial 
of it will be believed by nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal 
gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the 
introductory words, " Without vanity, 1 may say," etc., but some 
vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in 
others, whatever share they have of it themselves ; but I give it 
fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is 
often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are 
within his sphere of action ; and therefore in many cases it would 
not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his 
vanity among the other comforts of life. . . . 

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. 
I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father 
intending to devote me, as the tithe i of his sons, to the service 
of the church. My early readiness in learning to read (which 
must have been very early, as 1 do not remember when I could 
not read), and the opinion of all his friends that I should cer- 
tainly make a good scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of 
his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed to 
give me all his short-hand volumes of sermons, I suppose as a 
stock to set up with, if I would learn his character.'-^ I continued, 
however, at the grammar-school not quite one year, though in 



1 /y///^, literally " tenth," — a humorous reference to his father's ten sons 
'^ i. e., his system of short-hand. Franklin elsewhere says, " He had formed 
a short-hand of his own, which he taught me." 



FRANKLIN 1 19 

that time I had risen gradually from the middle of the class ot 
that year to be the head of it, and, further, was removed into the 
next class above it, in order to go with that into the third at the 
end of the year. But my father, in the meantime, from a view 
of the expense of a college education, which, having so large a 
f.imily, he could not well afford, and the mean living many so 
educated were afterwards able to obtain, — reasons that he gave 
to his friends in my hearing, — altered his first intention, took me 
from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing 
and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell, 
very successful in his profession generally, and that by mild, en- 
couraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty 
soon, but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it. 
At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his 
business, which was that of a tallow-chandler^ and soap-boiler, — 
a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in 
New England,^ and on finding his dyeing trade would not main- 
tain his family, being in little request. ^Accordingly, I was em- 
ployed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping- mold 
and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of 
errands, etc. 

I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea ; 
but my father declared against it. However, living near the 
water, I was much in and about it, learned early to swim well 
and to manage boats ; and when in a boat or canoe with other 
boys, I was commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case 
of difficulty. And upon other occasions I was generally a leader 
among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which 
I will mention one instance, as it shows an early projecting ^ 
public spirit, though not then justly conducted. 

There was a salt marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, 
on the edge of which, at high- water, we used to stand to fish for 

1 Compare the etymology oi candle and kindle. 

- "Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife, with three 
children, into New England about 1682." Their former home had been at 
Eton, in Northamptonshire, England. ^ projecting = full of projects 



I20 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quag- 
mire. My proposal was to build a wharf there fit for us to 
stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones 
which were intended for a new house near the marsh, and which 
would very w^ell suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, 
when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my play- 
fellows, and working with them diligendy, like so many emmets, 
sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away 
and built our little wharf. The next morning the workmen were 
surprised at missing the stones, which were found in our wharf. 
Inquiry was made after the removers ; we were discovered, and 
complained of ; several of us were corrected by our fathers ; and 
though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me 
that nothing was useful which was not honest. . . . 

I continued thus employed in my father's business for two 
years, — that is, till I was twelve years old ; and my brother John, 
who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, 
and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance 
that I was destined to supply his place and become a tallow- 
chandler. But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was 
under apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more agree- 
able, I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had 
done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to 
walk with him and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., 
at their work, that he might observe my inclination and endeavor 
to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever since been 
a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools ; and 
it has been useful to me, having learned so much by it as to be 
able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could 
not readily be got, and to construct little machines for my ex- 
periments while the intention of making the experiment was fresh 
and warm in my mind. ... 

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money 
that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased 
with the " Pilgrim's Progress," my first collection was of John 
Bunyan's works, in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold 



FRANKLIN 121 

them to enable me to buy R. Burton's '' Historical Collections; " 
they were small chapmen's ^ books, and cheap, forty or fifty in 
all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in po- 
lemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often re- 
gretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, 
more proper ^ books had not fallen in my way, since it was now 
resolved I should not be a clergyman. " Plutarch's Lives " there 
was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent 
to great advantage. There was also a book of De Foe's, called 
an "Essay on Projects," and another of Dr. Mather's, called 
" Essays to do Good," which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking 
that had an influence on some of the principal future events of 
my life. 

This bookish inclination at length determined my father to 
make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of 
that profession. In 171 7 my brother James returned from Eng- 
land with a press and letters, to set up his business in Boston. 
I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a han- 
kering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such 
an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my 
brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and 
signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I 
was to serve as an apprentice ^ till I was twenty-one years of 
age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the 
last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the busi- 
ness, and became a useful hand to my brother, I now had ac- 
cess to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of 
booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which 
I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my 
room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was 
borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, 
lest it should be missed or wanted. 

1 chapmen, peddlers ; that is, cheap editions of books for popular sale by 
hawkers and peddlers 

2 suitable 

3 From Lat. apprehendere, "to take hold of" (with the mind), to learn; 
compare apprehended, two sentences above. 



122 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

And after some time an mgenious ^ tradesman, Mr. Matthew 
Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented 
our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, 
and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now 
took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces. My brother, 
thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on 
composing occasional ballads. One was called " The Lighthouse 
Tragedy," and contained an account of the drowning of Captain 
Worthilake, with his two daughters ; the other was a sailor's song, 
on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard), the pirate. They were 
wretched stuff, in the Grub Street ^ ballad style ; and when they 
were printed he sent me about the town to sell them. The first 
sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great 
noise. This flattered my vanity ; but my father discouraged me 
by ridiculing my performances and telling me verse-makers were 
generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, — most probably 
a very bad one ; but as prose-wTiting has been of great use to 
me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my 
advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired 
what little ability I have in that way. 



II 

There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by 
name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes 
disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous 
of confuting ^ one another, — which disputatious turn, by the way, 
is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely 
disagreeable in company, by the contradiction that is necessary 
to bring it into practice ; and thence, besides souring and spoiling 
the conversation, is productive of disgust, and perhaps enmities 

1 This word was once much used in cases where we write ingeiiiions. 

2 This was a London street of two hundred years ago, the home of literary 
hacks; hence, the name was one of contempt. 

^ Define dispute, argue, confute. 



FRAhlKLlN 123 

where you may have occasion for friendship. Persons of good 
sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, 
university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at 
Edinborough. . . . 

About this time I met with an odd volume of the " Spectator." ^ 
It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I 
bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with 
it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to 
imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and mak- 
ing short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by 
a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to com- 
plete the papers again by expressing each hinted sentiment at 
length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suita- 
ble words that should come to hand. Then I compared my 
"Spectator" with the original, discovered some of my faults, 
and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, 
or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought 
I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making 
verses ; since the continual occasion for words of the same im- 
port, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different 
sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant ne- 
cessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that 
variety in my mind and make me master of it. Therefore I 
took some of the tales and turned them into verse, and after a 
time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them 
back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints 
into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce ^ 
them into the best order, before I began to form the full sen- 
tences and complete the paper. This was to teach me method 
in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work after- 
wards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended 
them ; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in 
certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to 
improve the method or the language ; and this encouraged me 

1 See page 89 

■2 reduce, here used literally = bring back 



124 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable Eng- 
lish writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for 
these exercises and for reading was at night, after work, or be- 
fore it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived 
to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could 
the common attendance on public worship which my father used 
to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed 
I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, 
afford time to practice it. . . . 

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an 
English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of 
which there was^ two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and 
logic, the latter finishing with a dispute in the Socratic method ; 
and, soon after, I procured Xenophon's " Memorable Things of 
Socrates," wherein are many instances of the same method. I 
found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to 
those against whom I used it ; therefore I took a delight in it, 
practiced it continually, and grew very artful and expert in draw- 
ing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the 
consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in 
difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and 
so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always 
deserved. 

I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, 
retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest 
diffidence ; never using, when I advanced anything that may pos- 
sibly be disputed, the words certainly, undotibtedly, or any others 
that give the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather say, 
I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so ; it appears 
to me, or, 1 should think it so or so, for such and such reasons ; 
or, / imagine it to be so ; or, it is so, ij I am not mistaken. This 
habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have 
had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into 
measures that I have been from time to time engaged in pro- 
moting ; and as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or 

^ This was permissible usage in Franklin's day. 



FRAhlKLIN 125 

to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sen- 
sible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a posi- 
tive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to 
create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for 
which speech was given us, — to wit, giving or receiving infor- 
mation or pleasure. For if you would inform, a positive and 
dogmatical manner m advancing your sentiments may provoke 
contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish in- 
formation and improvement from the knowledge of others, and 
yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fixed in your 
present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love dispu- 
tation, will probably leave you undisturbed in possession of your 
error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recom- 
mend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose 
concurrence you desire. ... 

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a news- 
paper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was 
called the New England Conrant. The only one before it was 
the Boston News- Letter} I remember his being dissuaded 
by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not likely to 
succeed, one newspaper being, in their judgment, enough for 
America. At this time there are not less than five-and-twenty. 
He went on, however, with the undertaking, and after having 
worked in composing the types and printing off the sheets, I 
was employed to carry the papers through the streets to the 
customers. 

He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused 
themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which gained 
it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen 
often visited us. Hearing their conversations, and their ac- 
counts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was 
excited to try my hand among them ; but being still a boy, and 

1 This was written from recollection, after the lapse of half a century. 
The Boston Gazette and the (Philadelphia) American Weekly Mercury wexQ 
both commenced in 17 19. The New England Conrant was therefore the 
fourth newspaper that appeared in America. 



126 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of 
mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to dis- 
guise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it in at 
night under the door of the printing-house. It was found in the 
morning and communicated to his writing friends when they 
called in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hear- 
ing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their 
approbation, and that in their different guesses at the author, 
none were named but men of some character ^ among us for 
learning and ingenuity. I suppose now that I was rather lucky 
in my judges, and that perhaps they were not really so very good 
ones as I then esteemed them. 

Encouraged, however, by this, I wrote and conveyed in the 
same way to the press several more papers, which were equally 
approved ; and I kept my secret till my small fund of sense ^ for 
such performances was pretty well exhausted, and then I dis- 
covered ^ it, when I began to be considered "^ a little more by my 
brother's acquaintance, and in a manner that did not quite please 
him, as he thought, probably with reason, that it tended to make 
me too vain. And perhaps this might be one occasion of the 
differences that we began to have about this time. Though a 
brother, he considered himself as my master, and me as his 
apprentice ; and, accordingly, expected the same service from me 
as he would from another, while I thought he demeaned me too 
much in some he required of me, who from a brother expected 
more indulgence. Our disputes were often brought before our 
father, and I fancy I was either generally in the right, or else 
a better pleader, because the judgment was generally in my 
favor. But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten 
me, which I took extremely amiss ; and, thinking my appren- 
ticeship very tedious, I was continually wishing for some oppor- 



* reputation 
2 sense, ability, capacity 

^ This verb was generally used in Franklin's time in the sense of to show, 
to make kno7vn. 

4 to be considered, to be regarded with consideration, to be respected 



FRANKLIN 1 27 

tunity of shortening it, which at length offered in a manner 
unexpected. 

One of the pieces in our newspaper on some pohtical point, 
which I have now forgotten, gave offense to the Assembly. He 
was taken up, censured, and imprisoned for a month, by the 
Speaker's warrant, — I suppose, because he would not discover his 
author. I too was taken up and examined before the council ; 
but though I did not give them any satisfaction, they contented 
themselves with admonishing me, and dismissed me, considering 
me, perhaps, as an apprentice who was bound to keep his master's 
secrets. 

During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good 
deal, notwithstanding our private differences, I had the manage- 
ment of the paper; and I made bold to give our rulers some 
rubs in it, which my brother took very kindly, while others be- 
gan to consider me in an unfavorable light, as a young genius 
that had a turn for libeling and satire. My brother's discharge 
was accompanied with an order of the House (a very odd one), 
*' that James Franklin should no longer print the paper called the 
New England Couranty 

There was a consultation held in our printing-house among his 
friends what he should do in this case. Some proposed to evade ^ 
the order by changing the name of the paper ; but my brother 
seeing inconveniences in that, it was finally concluded on as a 
better way, to let it be printed for the future under the name of 
Benjamin Fr-a.nklin ; and to avoid ^ the censure of the Assembly, 
that might fall on him as still printing it by his apprentice, the 
contrivance was that my old indenture should be returned to me, 
with a full discharge on the back of it, to be shown on occasion ; ^ 
but to secure to him the benefit of my service, I was to sign new 
indentures for the remainder of the term, which were to be kept 
private. A very flimsy scheme it was ; however, it was imme- 

1 evade . . . avoid; discriminate these verbs. 

- Compare case in the first sentence of this paragraph. What is the 
etymology ? 



128 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

diately executed, and the paper went on accordingly, under my 
name, for several months. 

At length a fresh difference arising between my brother and 
me, T took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming that he 
would not venture to produce the new indentures. It was not 
fair in me to take this advantage, and this I therefore reckon 
one of the first errata^ of my life ; but the unfairness of it weighed 
little with me when under the impressions of resentment for the 
blows his passion too often urged him to bestow upon me, though 
he was otherwise not an ill-natured man : perhaps I was too saucy 
and provoking. 

When he found I would leave him, he took care to prevent my 
getting employment in any other printing-house of the town, by 
going round and speaking to every master, who accordingly re- 
fused to give me work. I then thought of going to New York, as 
the nearest place where there was a printer; and I was rather^ 
inclined to leave Boston when I reflected that I had already made 
myself a little obnoxious to the governing party. I determined 
on the point, but my father now residing with my brother, I was 
sensible that if I attempted to go openly, means would be used 
to prevent me. My friend Collins, therefore, undertook to man- 
age a little for me. He agreed with the captain of a New York 
sloop for my passage. So I sold some of my books to raise a 
little money, was taken on board privately, and as we had a fair 
wind, in three days I found myself in New York, — near three 
hundred miles from home, a boy of but seventeen, without the 
least recommendation to or knowledge of any person in the place, 
and with very little money in my pocket. 

1 Account for Franklin's use of this technical term. 

2 rather, more willingly. Etymology .'' and see the adjective rathe, Milton, 
page 71 



JOHNSON 



29 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 

1 709-1 784 

Samuel Johnson, a distinguished figure in the English literature of 
his time, was born in 1709 and died in 1784. He compiled a well-known 
" Dictionary of the English Language," and wrote verse, essays, and biog- 
raphies, including his celebrated " Lives of the Poets." He was the con- 
temporary of Goldsmith, Burke, Sheridan, and many famous literary men 




</^-^ (/^ 



and women, among whom he enjoyed a sort of pre-eminence, yielded to 
his arrogance as well as to his merits. His prose writings are marked by 
formality of style and vigor of thought. Like Addison, he has furnished 
an adjective descriptive of literary style; and to be " Johnsonian" is to be 
ponderous and grandiose. This estimate of Dr. Johnson's style, however, 
is founded upon his words rather than upon the structure of his sentences, 
which is never involved, but always simple and modern. In his choice of 
terms he inclined to the Latin element in our language. " Rasselas, Prince 
of Abyssinia," an allegorical story from which two of our extracts are taken, 

9 



I30 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

is the most familiar of his compositions to the general reader. Dr. John- 
son was acute and argumentative, but conservative in his views, dogmatic 
and positive in his assertions. His biography, written by his friend Boswell, 
gives a full and vivid portrait of him as a man and a writer. 

The summing up of Boswell may well be reproduced in this place : — 

" It may be expected that I should collect into one view the capital and 
distinguishing features of this extraordinary man. . . . He was prone to 
superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him 
to a belief of the marvelous and the mysterious, his vigorous reason exam 
ined the evidence with jealousy. .He was a sincere and zealous Christian, 
of high Church of England and monarchical principles, which he would not 
tamely suffer to be questioned ; and had, perhaps, at an early period nar- 
rowed his mind somewhat too much both as to religion and politics. His 
being impressed with the danger of extreme latitude in either, though he 
was of a very independent spirit, occasioned his appearing somewhat un- 
favorable to the prevalence of that noble freedom of sentiment which is the 
best possession of man. Nor can it be denied that he had many prejudices, 
which, however, frequently suggested many of his pointed sayings that 
rather show a playfulness of fancy than any settled malignity. He was 
steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of religion and morality, 
both from a regard for the order of society, and from a veneration for the 
Great Source of all order ; correct, nay, stern in his taste ; hard to please, 
and easily offended ; impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most 
humane and benevolent heart, which showed itself not only in a most liberal 
charity, as far as his circumstances would allow, but in a thousand instances 
of active benevolence. He was afflicted with a bodily disease which made 
him often restless and fretful, and with a constitutional melancholy, the 
clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy 
cast to his whole course of thinking ; we, therefore, ought not to wonder at 
his sallies of impatience and passion at any time, especially when provoked 
by obtrusive ignorance or presuming petulance. . . . 

" He loved praise, when it w^as brought to him ; but was too proud to seek 
for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. As he was general and 
unconfined in his studies, he cannot be considered as master of any one 
particular science ; but he had accumulated a vast and various collection of 
learning and knowledge, which was so arranged in his mind as to be ever in 
readiness to be brought forth. But his superiority over other learned men 
consisted chiefly in what may be called the art of thinking, the art of using 
his mind, — a certain continual power of seizing the useful substance of all 
that he knew, and exhibiting it in a clear and forcible manner ; so that 
knowledge, which we often see to be no better than lumber in men of dull 
understanding, was in him true, evident, and actual wisdom. . . . 

" In him were united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, 
which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason 
close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. Exulting in his intellectual 



JOHNSON 131 

strength and dexterity, he could when he pleased be the greatest sophist that 
ever contended in the lists of declamation ; and from a spirit of contradic- 
tion and a delight in showing his powers, he would often maintain the wrong 
side with equal warmth and ingenuity ; so that when there was an audience, 
his real opinions could seldom be gathered from his talk ; though when he 
was in company with a single friend, he would discuss a subject with genuine 
fairness. But he was too conscientious to make error permanent and per- 
nicious by deliberately writing it ; and in all his numerous works he earnestly 
inculcated what appeared to him to be the truth; his piety being constant 
and the ruling principle of all his conduct. 

"Such. was Samuel Johnson, a man whose talents, acquirements, and 
virtues were so extraordinary that the more his character is considered, 
the more he will be regarded by the present age and by posterity with 
admiration and reverence," 



A PALACE IN A VALLEY 

Ye who listen with creduHty to the whispers of fancy, and pur- 
sue with eagerness the phantoms of hope ; who expect that age 
will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of 
the present day will be supplied by the morrow ; attend to the 
history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. 

Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperor in whose 
dominions the Father of Waters ^ begins his course ; whose bounty 
pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over half the world 
the harvests of Egypt. 

According to the custom which has descended from age to age 
among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in 
a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian 
royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne. 

The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had des- 
tined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes was a spacious 
valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by 
mountains, of which the summits overhang the middle part. The 
only passage by which it could be entered was a cavern that 
passed under a rock, of which it has long been disputed whether 

1 the Nile 



132 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

it was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of 
the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which 
opened into the valley was closed with gates of iron, forged by 
the artificers of ancient days, so massy that no man could without 
the help of engines open or shut them. 

From the mountains on every side rivulets descended that 
filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake 
in the middle inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented 
by every fowl whom Nature has taught to dip the wing in water. 
This lake discharged its superfluities by a stream which entered a 
dark cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and fell with 
dreadful noise from precipice to precipice till it was heard no 
more. 

The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, the banks 
of the brooks were diversified with flowers ; every blast shook 
spices from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits upon the 
ground. All animals that bite the grass or browse the shrub, 
whether wild or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, secured 
from beasts of prey by the mountains which confined them. On 
one part were flocks and herds feeding in the pastures, on an- 
other, all beasts of chase frisking in the lawns ; the sprightly kid 
was bounding on the rocks, the subtle monkey frolicking among 
the trees, and the solemn elephant reposing in the shade. All 
the diversities of the world were brought together, the blessings 
of nature were collected, and its evils extracted and excluded. 

The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants with the 
necessaries of life ; and all delights and superfluities were added 
at the annual visit which the emperor paid his children, when the 
iron gate was opened to the sound of music ; and during eight 
days every one that resided in the valley was required to propose 
whatever might contribute to make seclusion pleasant, to fill up 
the vacancies of attention, and lessen the tediousness of time. 
Every desire was immediately granted. All the artificers of 
pleasure were cafled to gladden the festivity ; the musicians 
exerted the power of harmony, and the dancers showed their 
activity before the princes, in hope that they should pass their 



JOHNSON 133 

lives in this blissful captivity, to which those only were admitted 
whose performance was thought able to add novelty to luxury. 
Such was the appearance of security and delight which this re- 
tirement afforded, that they to whom it was new always jiesired 
that it might be perpetual ; and as those on whom the iron gate 
had once closed were never suffered to return, the effect of long 
experience could not be known. Thus every year produced new 
schemes of delight, and new competitors for imprisonment. 

The palace stood on an eminence raised about thirty paces 
above the surface of the lake. It was divided into many squares, 
or courts, built with greater or less magnificence, according to 
the rank of those for whom they were designed. The roofs were 
turned into arches of massy stone, joined by a cement that grew 
harder by time, and the building stood from century to century 
deriding the solstitial rains and equinoctial hurricanes, without 
need of reparation. 

This house, which was so large as to be fully known to none 
but some ancient officers who successively inherited the secrets 
of the place, was built as if Suspicion herself had dictated the 
plan. To every room there was an open and a secret passage ; 
every square had a communication with the rest, either from the 
upper stories by private galleries, or by subterranean passages 
from the lower apartments. Many of the columns had unsus- 
pected cavities, in which a long race of monarchs had deposited 
their treasures. They then closed up the opening with marble, 
which was never to be removed but in the utmost exigencies of 
the kingdom ; and recorded their accumulations in a book which 
was itself concealed in a tower not entered but by the emperor, 
attended by the prince who stood next in succession. 



THE DISCONTENT OF RASSELAS 

Here the sons and daughters of Abyssinia lived only to know 
the soft vicissitudes of pleasure and repose, attended by all that 
were skillful to delight, and gratified with whatever the senses 



134 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

can enjoy. They wandered in gardens of fragrance, and slept in 
the fortresses of security. Every art was practised to make them 
pleased with their own condition. The sages who instructed 
them told them of nothing but the miseries of public life, and 
described all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity, where 
discord was always raging, and where man preyed upon man. 

To heighten their opinion of their own felicity, they were daily 
entertained with songs, the subject of which was the happy valley. 
Their appetites were excited by frequent enumerations of different 
enjoyments, and revelry and merriment was the business of every 
hour from the dawn of morning to the close of even. 

These methods were generally successful ; few of the princes 
had ever wished to enlarge their bounds, but passed their lives in 
full conviction that they had all within their reach that art or 
nature could bestow, and pitied those whom fate had excluded 
from this seat of tranquillity, as the sport of chance and the slave 
of misery. 

Thus they rose in the morning and lay down at night, pleased 
with each other and with themselves, — all but Rasselas, who in 
the twenty-sixth year of his age began to withdraw himself from 
their pastimes and assemblies, and to delight in solitary walks and 
silent meditation. He often sat before tables covered with luxury, 
and forgot to taste the dainties that were placed before him ; he 
rose abruptly in the midst of the song, and hastily retired beyond 
the sound of music. His attendants obsefved the change, and 
endeavored to renew his love of pleasure. He neglected their 
officiousness,^ repulsed their invitations, and spent day after day 
on the banks of rivulets sheltered with trees, where he some- 
times listened to the birds in the branches, sometimes observed 
the fish playing in the stream, and anon cast his eyes upon the 
pastures and mountains filled with animals, of which some were 
biting the herbage, and some sleeping among the bushes. 

This singularity of his humor made him much observed. One 
of the sages, in whose conversation he had formerly delighted, 
followed him secretly, in hope of discovering the cause of his 

1 official kindness 



JOHNSON 135 

disquiet. Rasselas, who knew not that any one was near him, 
having for some time fixed his eyes upon the goats that were 
browsing among the rocks, began to compare their condition 
with his own. 

''What," said he, "makes the difference between man and all 
the rest of the animal creation ? Every beast that strays beside 
me has the same corporal necessities with myself: he is hungry 
and crops the grass, he is thirsty and drinks the stream ; his 
thirst and hunger are appeased, he is satisfied and sleeps : he 
rises again and is hungry ; he is again fed and is at rest. I am 
hungry and thirsty, like him ; but when thirst and hunger cease 
I am not at rest : I am, like him, pained with want ; but am not, 
like him, satisfied with fullness. The intermediate hours are te- 
dious and gloomy ; I long again to be hungry, that I may again 
quicken my attention. The birds peck the berries or the corn, 
and fly away to the groves, where they sit in seeming happiness 
on the branches, and waste their lives in tuning one unvaried 
series of sounds. I likewise can call the lutanist ^ and singer, but 
the sounds that pleased me yesterday weary me to-day, and will 
grow more wearisome to-morrow. I can discover within me no 
power of perception which is not glutted with its proper^ pleasure, 
yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man surely has some latent 
sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some 
desires distinct from sense, which must be satisfied before he can 
be happy." 

After this he Hfted up his head, and seeing the moon rising, 
walked toward the palace. As he passed through the fields, and 
saw the animals around him, "Ye," said he, "are happy, and 
need not envy me that walk thus among you, burdened with my- 
self ; nor do I, ye gentle beings, envy your felicity, for it is not 
the felicity of man. I have many distresses from which ye are 
free ; I fear pain when I do not feel it ; I sometimes shrink at 
evils recollected, and sometimes start at evils anticipated : surely 
the equity of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with 
peculiar enjoyments." 

1 lutist - appropriate, suitable 



136 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

With observations like these the prince amused himself as he 
returned, uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a look 
that discovered him to feel some complacence in his own per- 
spicacity, and to receive some solace of the miseries of life 
from consciousness of the delicacy with which he bewailed them. 
He mingled cheerfully in the diversions of the evening, and all 
rejoiced to find that his heart was lightened. 



We were now treading that illustrious island ^ which was once 
the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and 
roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the 
blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emo- 
tion would be impossible if it were endeavored, and would be 
foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the 
power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the 
future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity 
of thinking beings. Far from me and my friends be such frigid 
philosophy as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any 
ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. 
The man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain 
force on the plains of Marathon,^ or whose piety would not grow 
warmer among the ruins of lona. — Journey to the Hebrides. 

1 lona, one of the western islands of Scotland, interesting for the ruins 
of its ancient religious edifices, established by Saint Columba 565 A. D. 
- The scene of a famous battle between the Greeks and Persians 490 b. c. 



GOLDSMITH 



137 



GOLDSMITH 



1 729- 1 774 



In the long and brilliant list of writers who have made enduring contri- 
butions to English literature there is no dearer name than that of Oliver 
Goldsmith, for he seems the personal friend of all who read his writings. 
He was born in Ireland in 1729, and died in 1774, spending most of his life 
in London, where he enjoyed the friendship of Johnson and other eminent 
authors. His early career was full of vicissitudes ; he sauntered through the 




<f'^t-^e^ ^^TK/^^'**-'^?^ 



first years of manhood with empty pockets and smiling lips, studying medi- 
cine by fits and starts, wandering through Europe, winning his bread by 
the exercise of his musical talents, and at last settling down in London to 
the miserable lot of a literary hack. But he made friends wherever he 
went ; that he won and retained the warm regard of Samuel Johnson is 
abundant proof of the strength of his fascinations. He wrote his most 
famous works almost literally under the pressure of hunger; the manu- 
script of one of them was sold to satisfy an execution while the officers of 
the law waited in the author's lodgings. Goldsmith's nature had no bitter- 



138 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

ness or guile in it: he loved his fellows, and was in turn beloved. The 
qualities of his heart, as well as those of his intellect, are manifest in his 
writings, and give them the sweetness that the highest intellectual power or 
culture could not impart. ''Who," says Thackeray, "of the millions whom 
Goldsmith has amused, does not love him ? To be the most beloved of 
English writers, what a title that is for a man ! A wild youth, wayward, but 
full of tenderness and affection, quits the country village where his boyhood 
has been passed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see the 
great world out-of doors, and achieve name and fortune ; and after years of 
dire struggle, and neglect, and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to 
his native place as it had longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, 
he writes a book and a poem full of the recollections and feelings of home 
— he paints the friends and scenes of his youth, and peoples Auburn and 
Wakefield with remembrances of Lissoy. Wander he must, but he carries 
away a home-relic with him, and dies with it on his breast. 

" His nature is truant ; in repose it longs for change, as on the journey it 
looks back for friends and quiet. He passes to-day in building an air-castle 
for to-morrow, or in writing yesterday's elegy ; and he would fly away this 
hour, but that a cage and necessity keep him. W^hat is the charm of his 
verse, of his style and humor } His sweet regrets, his delicate compassion, 
his soft smile, his tremulous sympathy, the weakness which he owns ? Your 
love for him is half pity. With that sweet story of 'The Vicar of Wake- 
field,' he has found entry into every castle and every hamlet in Europe. Not 
one of us, however busy or hard, but once or twice in our lives has passed 
an evening with him, and undergone the charm of his delightful music." 

His "Vicar of Wakefield" is the first genuine novel of domestic life 
that appeared in English literature, and so long as poetry survives, " The 
Traveler " and " The Deserted Village " will be read and admired. His 
versatility was astonishing, he was a poet, a novelist, an essayist, and an 
historian, and won fame in each department of effort In the words of 
Johnson's epitaph on his monument in Westminster Abbey, "he touched 
nothing that he did not adorn." 1 



THE SAGACITY OF THE SPIDER 

Of all the solitary insects I have ever remarked, the spider is 
the most sagacious, and its actions, to me, who have attentively 
considered them, seem almost to exceed belief. This insect is 
formed by nature for a state of war, not only upon other insects, 

'^ Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit. 



GOLDSMITH 139 

but upon each other. For this state nature seems perfectly well 
to have formed it. Its head and breast are covered with a strong 
natural coat of mail, which is impenetrable to the attempts of 
every other msect, and its belly is enveloped m a soft, pliant skin 
which eludes the sting even of a wasp. Its legs are terminated 
by strong claws, not unlike those of the lobster ; and their vast 
length, like spears, serves to keep every assailant at a distance. 

Not worse furnished for observation than for an attack or de- 
fense, it has several eyes, large, transparent, and covered with a 
horny substance, which, however, does not impede its vision. 
Besides this, it is furnished with a forceps above the mouth, 
which serves to kill or secure the prey already caught in its claws 
or its net. 

Such are the implements of war with which the body is imme- 
diately furnished ; but its net to entangle the enemy seems to be 
what it chiefly trusts to, and what it takes most pains to render 
as complete as possible. Nature has furnished the body of this 
little creature with a glutinous liquid, which, proceeding from the 
lower extremity of the body, it spins into a thread, coarser or 
finer as it chooses to contract its sphincter.^ In order to fix its 
threads, when it begins to weave it emits a small drop of its 
liquid against the wall, which, hardening by degrees, serves to 
hold the thread very firmly. Then receding from the first point, 
as it recedes the thread lengthens ; and when the spider has 
come to the place where the other end of the thread should be 
fixed, gathering up with its claws the thread, which would other- 
wise be too slack, it is stretched tightly, and fixed in the same 
manner to the wall as before. 

In this manner it spins and fixes several threads parallel to 
each other, which, so to speak, serve as the warp to the intended 
web. To form the woof, it spins in the same manner its thread, 
transversely fixing one end to the first thread that was spun, and 
which is always the strongest of the whole web, and the other to 
the wall. All these threads, being newly spun, are glutinous, and 

1 a muscle that closes the mouth of an orifice 



140 CATHC/iRTS LITER/IRY READER 

therefore stick to each other wherever they happen to touch ; 
and in those parts of the web most exposed to be torn, our natu- 
ral artist strengthens them, by doubUng the thread sometimes 
six-fold. 

Thus far naturahsts have gone in the description of this animal ; 
what follows is the result of my own observation upon that species 
of insect called the house-spider. I perceived, about four years 
ago, a large spider in one corner of my room making its web, 
and though the maid frequently leveled her fatal broom against 
the labors of the little animal, I had the good fortune then to 
prevent its destruction, and, I may say, it more than paid me by 
the entertainment it afforded. 

In three days the web was with incredible diligence completed ; 
nor could 1 avoid thinking that the insect seemed to exult in its 
new abode. It frequently traversed it round, and examined the 
strength of every part of it, retired into its hole, and came out 
very frequently. The first enemy, however, it had to encounter, 
was another and a much larger spider, which having no web of 
its own, and having probably exhausted all its stock in former 
labors of this kind, came to invade the property of its neighbor. 
Soon, then, a terrible encounter ensued, in which the invader 
seemed to have the victory, and the laborious spider was obliged 
to take refuge in its hole. Upon this I perceived the victor using 
every art to draw the enemy from its stronghold. He seemed 
to go off, but quickly returned, and when he found all arts vain, 
began to demolish the new web without mercy. This brought 
on another battle, and, contrary to my expectations, the laborious 
spider became conqueror, and fairly killed his antagonist. 

Now, then, in peaceful possession of what was justly its own, 
it waited three days with the utmost impatience, repairing the 
breaches of its web, and taking no sustenance that I could per- 
ceive. At last, however, a large blue fly fell into the snare, and 
struggled hard to get loose. The spider gave it leave to entangle 
itself as much as possible, but it seemed to be too strong for the 
cobweb. I must own I was greatly surprised when I saw the 
spider immediately sally out, and in less than a minute weave a 



GOLDSMITH 141 

net round its captive, by which the motion of its wings was 
stopped, and when it was fairly hampered in this manner, it was 
seized and dragged into the hole. 

In this manner it lived, in a precarious state, and nature 
seemed to have fitted it for such a life ; for upon a single fly 
it subsisted for more than a week. 1 once put a wasp into the 
net ; but when the spider came out in order to seize it as usual, 
upon perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal with, it 
instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and contributed 
all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable an antagonist. 
When the wasp was at liberty, I expected the spider would have 
set about repairing the breaches that were made in its net ; but 
those, it seems, were irreparable, wherefore the cobweb was now 
entirely forsaken, and a new one begun, which was completed in 
the usual time. 

I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider 
could furnish ; wherefore I destroyed this, and the insect set 
about another. When I destroyed the other also, its whole 
stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more. 
The arts it made use of to support itself, now deprived of its 
great means of subsistence, were indeed surprising. I have seen 
it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours together, 
but cautiously watching all the time ; when a fly happened to 
approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all at once, and 
often seize its prey. 

Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and re- 
solved to invade the possession of some other spider, since it 
could not make a web of its own. It formed an attack upon a 
neighboring fortification, with great vigor, and at first was vigor- 
ously repulsed. Not daunted, however, with one defeat, in this 
manner it continued to lay siege to another's web for three days, 
and at length, having killed the defendant, actually took posses- 
sion. When smaller flies happen to fall into the snare, the spider 
does not sally out at once, but very patiently waits till it is sure 
of them ; for upon his immediately approaching, the terror of 
his appearance might give the captive strength sufficient to get 



142 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

loose ; the manner, then, is to wait patiently till, by ineffectual 
and impotent struggles, the captive has wasted all his strength, 
and then he becomes a certain and easy conquest. 

The insect I am now describing lived three years ; every year 
it changed its skin and got a new set of legs. At first it dreaded 
my approach to its web ; but at last it became so familiar as to 
take a fly out of my hand, and upon my touching any part of the 
web, would immediately leave its hole, prepared either for a 
defense or an attack. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 

Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, 

Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain. 

Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 

And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed ; 

Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please ; 

How often have I loitered o'er thy green. 

Where humble happiness endeared each scene ; 

How often have I paused on every charm, — 

The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, 

The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 

The decent church that topped the neighboring hill, 

The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, 

For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 

How often have I blest the coming day, 

When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 

And all the village train, from labor free, 

Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree. 

While many a pastime circled in the shade, 

The young contending as the old surveyed ; 

And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, 

And sleights^ of art and feats of strength went round ; 

1 dexterous tricks 



GOLDSMITH I43 

And still as each repeated pleasure tired, 

Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired. 

The dancing pair that simply sought renown^ 

By holding out, to tire each other down ; 

The swain mistrustless of his smutted face. 

While secret laughter tittered round the place ; 

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, 

The matron's glance that would those looks reprove, — 

These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these. 

With sweet succession, taught even toil to please ; 

These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed. 

These were thy charms — But all these charms are fled. 

Sweet smiling village, loveHest of the lawn, 
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ; 
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, 
And desolation saddens all thy green : 
One only master grasps the whole domain, 
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain ; 
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way ; 
Along thy glades, a solitary guest. 
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest ; 
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies. 
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. 
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all. 
And the long grass o'ertops the moldering wall ; 
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand. 
Far, far away thy children leave the land. 

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey. 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay ; 
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade ; 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made ; 
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied. 



144 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

A time there was, ere England's griefs began, 
When every rood of ground maintained its man ; 
For him Hght labor spread her wholesome store, 
Just gave what life required, but gave no more ; 
His best companions, innocence and health, 
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 

But times are altered ; trade's unfeeling train 
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain ; 
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose. 
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose : 
And every want to luxury allied, 
And every pang that folly pays to pride. 
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, 
Those calm desires that asked but little room, 
Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene. 
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green ; 
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore. 
And rural mirth and manners are no more. . . . 

In all my wanderings round this world of care. 
In all my griefs — and God has given my share — 
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown. 
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
To husband out life's taper at the close. 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose. . . . 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past. 
Here to return — and die at home at last. 

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline, 
Retreats from care that never must be mine, 
How happy he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 
Who quits a world where strong temptations try. 
And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; 



GOLDSMITH 145 

No surly porter stands in guilty state, 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate : 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; ^ 
Bends to the grave with unperceived decay, 
While resignation gently, slopes the way ; 
And, all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past ! 



HOME 

But where to find that happiest spot below. 
Who can direct, when all pretend to know? 
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone 
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own ; 
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, 
And his long nights of revelry and ease : 
The naked negro, panting at the line,^ 
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, 
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave. 
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. 
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, 
His first, best country ever is at home. 
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare. 
And estimate the blessings which they share, 
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find 
An equal portion dealt to all mankind ; 
As different good, by art or nature given, 
To different nations makes their blessing even. 

1 ''befriending Yivint's friend ;^' the repetition strengthens the idea of 
recompense. 
- the equator 

10 



146 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



BURKE 



1 730-1 797 



Edmund Burke was born in Dublin in 1730, and died in 1797. Unlike 
his great contemporary, Pitt, he was not a youthful prodigy, but a warm- 
hearted boy of apparently average intellectual capacity. Having gradu- 
ated at Trinity College, Dublin, he went to London and entered upon the 
study of law. But the profession did not suit him, and he soon abandoned 




it to devote himself to literary labors. His first considerable work was 
an essay entitled " A Vindication of Natural Society." It was a parody on 
the works of Lord Bolingbroke, who had maintained that natural religion is 
sufficient for man, and that he does not need a revelation. His second book 
was one which gave him permanent and honorable fame, — "An Inquiry 
into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful." In 1759 Burke 
returned to Ireland as private secretary to William Gerard Hamilton (known 



BURKE 147 

in history as "Single-Speech Hamilton"), Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieu- 
tenant. He held his place but a short time, leaving it to become Secretary 
to the Marquis of Rockingham. Soon obtaining a seat in Parliament, he 
began the brilliant political career the outlines of which are familiar to 
all. He was especially prominent in the debates upon the relations of the 
British government to the American colonies, and displayed a more thorough 
knowledge of the subject than any of his colleagues. In 1783 a political 
scheme, of which he was the organizer, having failed, he retired to private life. 
Burke was not a popular man ; he alienated his closest friends by the singu- 
larity and obstinacy of his opinions ; but remembering that Goldsmith loved 
him, and that he had befriended George Crabbe in the hour of the latter's 
extremity, we may believe that his infirmities were rather those of tempera- 
ment than of character. 

As a writer Burke stands in the very front rank Hazlitt says: "Burke 
was so far from being a gaudy or flowery writer that he was one of the 
severest writers. His words are the most like things ; his style is the most 
strictly suited to the subject. He unites every extreme and every variety of 
composition ; the lowest and the meanest words and descriptions with the 
highest. He exults in the display of power, in showing the extent, the 
force and intensity of his ideas ; he is led on by the mere impulse and vehe- 
mence of his fancy, not by the affectation of dazzling his readers by gaudy 
conceits or pompous images. He was completely carried away by his 
subject. 

" He had no other object but to produce the strongest impression on his 
reader, by giving the truest, the most characteristic, the fullest, and most 
forcible description of things, trusting to the power of his own mind to mold 
them into grace and beauty. He did not produce a splendid effect by setting 
fire to the light vapors that float in the regions of fancy, as the chemists 
make fine colors with phosphorus, but by the eagerness of his blows struck 
fire from the flint, and melted the hardest substances in the furnace of his 
imagination. He most frequently produced an effect by the remoteness and 
novelty of his combinations, by the force of contrast, by the striking manner 
in which the most opposite and unpromising materials were harmoniously 
blended together ; not by laying his hands on all the fine things he could 
think of, but by bringing together those things which he knew would blaze 
out into glorious light by their collision. The florid style is a mixture of 
affectation and commonplace. Burke's was a union of untamable vigor and 
originality. 

"Burke has been compared to Cicero, — I do not know for what reason. 
Their excellences are as different, and indeed as opposite, as they can well be. 
Burke had not the polished elegance, the glossy neatness, the artful regularity, 
the exquisite modulation, of Cicero; he had a thousand times more richness 
and originality of mind, more strength and pomp of diction." 

We give selections from one of his parliamentary addresses, and from his 
famous essay, " Reflections on the French Revolution." 



CATHCARVS LITERARY READER 



ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA i 

My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows 
from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, 
and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, 
are as strong as links of iron. Let the Colonies always keep the 
idea of their civil rights associated with your government ; -^ they 
will cling and grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be 
of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once 
understood, that your government may be one thing and their 
privileges another ; that these two things may exist without any 
mutual relation : the cement is gone ; the cohesion is loosened ; and 
everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have 
the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the 
sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our com- 
mon faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship 
freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they 
multiply, the more friends you will have ; the more ardently they 
love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery 
they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. 
They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. 
But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and 
your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. 
This is the commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. 
This is the true act of navigation, which binds to you the com- 
merce of the Colonies, and through them secures to you the 
wealth of the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, 
and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still 
preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not entertain so weak an 
imagination, as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits 
and your sufferances, your cockets ^ and your clearances, are what 
form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that 



1 The famous speech from which this extract is taken was delivered in the 
House of Commons, March 22, 1775- 
- custom-house certificates 



BURKE 149 

your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspending 
clauses, are the things that hold together the great contexture of 
this mysterious whole. These things do not make your government. 
Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the 
English communion ^ that gives all their life and efficacy to them. 
It is the spirit of the English constitution, which, infused through 
the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every 
part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. 

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in 
England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the land-tax act which 
raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote in the committee of 
supply, which gives you your army? or that it is the mutiny bill, 
which inspires it with bravery and discipline ? No ! surely no ! 
It is the love of the people ; it is their attachment to their 
government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such 
a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, 
and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your 
army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten 
timber. 

All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical 
to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians, 
who have no place among us ; a sort of people who think that 
nothing exists but what is gross and material ; and who therefore, 
far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of 
empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men 
truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master prin- 
ciples, which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, 
have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in 
all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; 
and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are 
conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our places as 
becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate "^ our 
public proceedings on America with the old warning of the Church, 
Sursiim corda ! ^ We ought to elevate our minds to the great- 

1 fellowship, community of interest and blood 

- begin favorably ^ Lat. Lift up your hearts ! 



150 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

ness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. 
By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have 
turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire ; and have 
made the most extensive, and the only honorable conquests, not 
by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the 
happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue 
as we have got an American empire. English privileges have 
made it all that it is; English privileges alone will make it all 
it can be. 



THE DECAY OF CHIVALROUS SENTIMENT 1 

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen 
of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles ; and surely never 
lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more 
delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating 
and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, — 
glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy. 
O, what a revolution ! and what a heart must I have, to contem- 
plate without emotion that elevation and that fall ! Little did I 
dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, 
distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry 
the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom ; 
little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters 
fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men 
of honor, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must 
have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that 
threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. 



1 This is justly esteemed one of the finest rhetorical passages in our 
language. The work in which it occurs appeared in 1790. In the preceding 
autumn (October, 1789) Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, together with 
her husband, Louis XVI., had been carried in mock triumph from Versailles 
to Paris by a revolutionary mob. Here the unfortunate lady was held captive 
till 1793, when she was executed. The passages in which occur the phrases 
" the age of chivalry " and " the cheap defense of nations " are justly famous. 



BURKE I 5 I 

That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded ; 
and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never 
more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that 
proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of 
the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of 
an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap 
defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic 
enterprise, is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that 
chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired 
courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it 
touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing 
all its grossness. 

This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in 
the ancient chivalry ; and the principle, though varied in its 
appearance by the varying state of human affairs, subsisted and 
influenced through a long succession of generations, even to the 
time we live in. If it should ever be totally extinguished, the loss 
I fear would be great. It is this which has given its character to 
modern Europe. It is this which has distinguished it under all 
its forms of government, and distinguished it to its advantage, 
from the' states of Asia, and possibly from those states which 
flourished in the most brflliant periods of the antique world. It 
was this which, without confounding ranks, had produced a noble 
equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social 
life. It was this opinion which mitigated kings into companions, 
and raised private men to be fellows with kings. Without force 
or opposition, it subdued the fierceness of pride and power ; it 
obliged sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, 
compelled stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a 
dominating vanquisher of laws, to be subdued by manners. 

But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which 
made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the 
different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incor- 
porated into pohtics the sentiments which beautify and soften 
private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering 
empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is 



152 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from 
the wardrobe of a moral imagination which the heart owns and 
the understanding ratifies as necessary to cover the defects of 
our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our 
own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and 
antiquated fashion. . . . 

On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the 
offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which 
is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and ele- 
gance, laws are to be supported only by their own terrors, and 
by the concern which each individual may find in them from 
his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own 
private interests. In the groves of their Academy, at the end 
of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows ! Nothing is 
left which engages the affections on the part of the common- 
wealth. On the principles of this mechanic^ philosophy, our 
institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expression, 
in persons, so as to create in us love, veneration, admiration, 
or attachment. But that sort of reason which banishes the affec- 
tions is incapable of filling their place. These public affections, 
combined with manners, are required sometimes as supplements, 
sometimes as correctives, always as aids, to law. The precept 
given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construc- 
tion of poems is equally true as to states : A'oji satis est pulchra 
esse poemata, dulcia sunto? There ought to be a system of 
manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be dis- 
posed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought 
to be lovely.^ 

1 mechanical, i. e. soulless 

2 The line is Horace's : " It is not enough that poems should be fine, — 
they must be pleasing." 

^ Concerning the queen whose tragic fate called forth the foregoing tribute 
from Burke, Jefferson, then American ambassador at Paris, wrote, Septem- 
ber 19, 1789, to John Jay, as follows: " It may be asked, what is the Queen 
disposed to do in the present situation of things ? Whatever rage, pride, and 
fear can dictate in a breast which never knew the presence of one moral 
restraint." The difficulties which confront the historian are strikingly illus- 
trated by these conflicting testimonies from contemDorary writers of the 
highest character. 



COPPER 



153 



COWPER 

1731-1800 

William Cowper was born in 1731, and died in 1800. His disposition was 
timid and retiring, and his religious convictions were so morbid as several 
times in his life to have dethroned his reason. His thoughts dwelt on somber 
themes, and his poems, with a few exceptions, are didactic to an unpleasant 
degree. It is not easy to understand how the same mind could have given 




birth to the melancholy imaginings which constitute the staple of his verse, 
and the warm, free humor of " John Gilpin's Ride." Unsocial though he was, 
Cowper was able to win and retain the hearty attachment of a few friends, 
in whose tender care he passed the closing years of his life. Though not 
one of the greatest English poets, Cowper holds and will hold an honorable 
place. His sentiments were always elevated, and his expression graceful, if 



154 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

not exceptionally brilliant or vigorous. Like Burns and Goldsmith, he in- 
clined to simple narrative, including natural description, and like them, too, 
his voice was often raised in sympathy with the suffering and oppressed. 
His style is always unaffected and sincere. 

Campbell says of him : "It is due to Cowper to fix our regard on the 
unaffectedness and authenticity of his works, considered as representations 
of himself, because he forms a striking instance of genius, writing the history 
of its own secluded feelings, reflections, and enjoyments, in a shape so inter- 
esting as to engage the imagination like a work of fiction. He has invented 
no character in fable, nor in the drama , but he has left a record of his own 
character, which forms not only an object of deep sympathy, but a subject 
for the study of human nature. His verse, it is true, considered as such a 
record, abounds with opposite traits of severity and gentleness, of playful- 
ness and superstition, of solemnity and mirth, which appear almost anoma- 
lous ; and there is, undoubtedly, sometimes an air of moody versatility in 
the extreme contrasts of his feelings. 

" But looking to his poetry as an entire structure, it has a massive air of 
sincerity. It is founded in steadfast principles of belief; and, if we may pro- 
long the architectural metaphor, though its arches may be sometimes gloomy, 
its tracery sportive, and its lights and shadows grotesquely crossed, yet, 
altogether, it still forms a vast, various, and interesting monument of the 
builder's mind." 

Cowper published no verse till he was past the middle age. The most 
famous, as it is the longest, of his works, is " The Task." 



ALEXANDER SELKIRK i 

I AM monarch of all I sun^ey, 

My right there is none to dispute ; 
From the center all round to the sea 

I am lord of the fowl and the brute. 
O Solitude, where are the charms 

That sages have seen in thy face ? 
Better dwell in the midst of alarms 

Than reign in this horrible place. 



1 Alexander Selkirk was a Scottish sailor who, having on one of his 
voyages quarreled with his captain, was left, in 1704, on the uninhabited 
island of Juan Fernandez, where, before his rescue, he remained for more 
than four years. Selkirk's adventures, it is said, suggested to Defoe the 
romance of " Robinson Crusoe." 



COIVPER . 155 

I am out of humanity's reach ; 

I must finish my journey alone ; 
Never hear the sweet music of speech — 

I start at the sound of my own. 
The beasts that roam over the plain 

My form with indifference see ; 
They are so unacquainted with men, 

Their tameness is shocking to me. 

Society, friendship, and love, 

Divinely bestowed upon man, 
O had I the wings of a dove. 

How soon would I taste you again ! 
My sorrows I then might assuage 

In the ways of religion and truth ; 
Might learn from the wisdom of age, 

And be cheered by the sallies of youth. 

Religion ! what treasure untold 

Resides in that heavenly word ! 
More precious than silver and gold, 

Or all that this earth can afford. 
But the sound of the church-going bell 

These valleys and rocks never heard, — 
Never sighed at the sound of a knell, 

Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared. 

Ye winds that have made me your sport. 

Convey to this desolate shore 
Some cordial endearing report 

Of a land I shall visit no more. 
My friends, do they now and then send 

A wish or a thought after me ? 
O tell me I yet have a friend, 

Though a friend I am never to see. 



56 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

How fleet is a glance of the mind ! 

Compared with the speed of its flight 
The tempest itself lags behind. 

And the swift-winged arrows of light. 
When I think of my own native land, 

In a moment I seem to be there ; 
But, alas ! recollection at hand 

Soon hurries me back to despair. 

But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest ; 

The beast is laid down in his lair ; 
Even here is a season of rest, 

And I to my cabin repair. 
There 's mercy in every place ; 

And mercy, encouraging thought ! 
Gives even affliction a grace. 

And reconciles man to his lot. 



APOSTROPHE TO ENGLAND 

England, with all thy faults I love thee still, 
My country ! and, while yet a nook is left 
Where English minds and manners may be found. 
Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime 
Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deformed 
With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, 
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies. 
And fields without a flower, for warmer France 
With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia's groves 
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle-bowers. 

To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime 
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire 
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task ; 
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake 



COIVPER 157 

Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart 
As any thunderer there. And I can feel 
Thy folhes, too, and with a just disdain 
Frown at effeminates, whose very looks 
Reflect dishonor on the land I love. 

Time was when it was praise and boast enough 

In every clime, and travel where we might, 

That we were born her children ; praise enough 

To fill the ambition of a private man 

That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue, 

And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own. 

Farewell, those honors ! and farewell with them 

The hope of such hereafter ! They have fallen 

Each in his field of glory, — one in arms. 

And one in council ; Wolfe upon the lap 

Of smiling victory that moment won, 

And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame. 

They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still 

Consulting England's happiness at home. 

Secured it by an unforgiving frown 

If any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought. 

Put so much of his heart into his act 

That his example had a magnet's force ; 

And all were swift to follow whom all loved. 

Those suns are set. O ! rise some other such, 

Or all that we have left is empty talk 

Of old achievements, and despair of new. 



ON MERCY 



I WOULD not enter on my list of friends 

(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense. 

Yet wanting sensibihty) the man 

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 



158 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

An inadvertent step may crush the snail 

That crawls at evening in the public path ; 

But he that has humanity, forewarned, 

Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. 

The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight. 

And charged, perhaps, with venom, that intrudes, 

A visitor unwelcome into scenes 

Sacred to neatness and repose, — the alcove, 

The chamber, or refectory, — may die : 

A necessary act incurs no blame. 

Not so, when, held within their proper bounds. 

And guiltless of offense, they range the air. 

Or take their pastime in the spacious field. 

There they are privileged ; and he that hunts 

Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, 

Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm. 

Who, when she formed, designed them an abode. 

The sum is this : If man's convenience, health, 

Or safety interfere, his rights and claims 

Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. 

Else they are all — the meanest things that are — 

As free to live, and to enjoy that life. 

As God was free to form them at the first. 

Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all. 

Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons 

To love it too. 



. . . There is a Book 
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, 
On which the eyes of God not rarely look, 
A chronicle of actions just and bright — 
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine ; 
And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine. 

Lines to Marv Unwin. 



GIBBON 



159 



GIBBON 



1 737-1 794 

Edward Gibbon, the historian, was born in Surrey, England, in 1737, 
and died in 1794. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, but remained 
only a short time. At an early age he became deeply interested in religion, 
and devoted himself to study, relieving the tedium of his labors by assidu- 
ous courtship of Mademoiselle Curchod, whose acquaintance he made in 




Switzerland. The lady loved him, but his own inclination changed, and she 
finally married M. Necker, and became the mother of Madame de Stael. 
In 1759 he returned to England and was admitted into the most cultivated 
society. Two years later he published in French an Essay on the " Study of 
Literature," which attracted but little attention in England. In 1763 he went 
to France, and became the intimate friend of Helvetius, D'Alembert, Diderot, 



l6o CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

and other eminent men. The next year he visited Rome, and there con- 
ceived the project of writing the history of " The Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire." 

In 1776 the first volume of this great work was published, and at once 
made him famous. His attacks on Christianity called out many severe re- 
bukes, which enhanced the popular interest in his book. The conclud- 
ing volumes of the History appeared in 1787. The author's last literary 
work was his Autobiography, which has been pronounced the finest speci- 
men of that kind of composition in the English language. The graces of 
Gibbon's style have always been the subject of admiration. In his History 
he is stately and magnificent ; in his Autobiography he is easy, spirited, 
and charming. The style of his History has been censured by some critics 
for its excessive elaboration and its opulence of French phrases, Porson 
going so far as to say that " there could not be a better exercise for a 
school-boy than to turn a page of it into English; " but the general verdict 
of literary authorities of his own and later times awards him the highest 
rank among English historians as a master of our language. 



ARABIA 
I 



In the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is 
intersected by sharp and naked mountains ; and the face of the 
desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and 
intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes, 
the winds, particularly from the southwest, diffuse a noxious and 
even deadly vapor; the hillocks of sand which they alternately 
raise and scatter are compared to the billows of the ocean, and 
whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and buried in the 
whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an object of 
desire and contest ; and such is the scarcity of wood, that some 
art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element of fire. 
Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize the soil, 
and convey its produce to the adjacent regions ; the torrents 
that .fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty earth ; the 
rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia, that strike 



GIBBON l6l 

their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are nourished by the dews 
of the night : a scanty supply of rain is collected in cisterns and 
aqueducts : the wells and springs are the secret treasure of the 
desert ; and the pilgrim of Mecca, ^ after many a dry and sultry 
march, is disgusted by the taste of the waters, which have rolled 
over a bed of sulphur or salt. 

Such is the general and genuine picture of the climate of 
Arabia. The experience of evil enhances the value of any local 
or partial enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream 
of fresh water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary 
Arabs to the fortunate spots which can afford food and refresh- 
ment to themselves and their cattle, and which encourage their 
industry in the cultivation of the palm-tree and the vine. The 
high lands that border on the Indian Ocean are distinguished 
by their superior plenty of wood and water : the air is more 
temperate, the fruits are more delicious, the animals and the 
human race more numerous : the fertility of the soil invites and 
rewards the toil of the husbandman; and peculiar gifts '" of frank- 
incense and coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants 
of the world. 

Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and 
original country of the horse ; the climate most propitious, not 
indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that 
generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the 
English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood ; the 
Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and 
the memory of the purest race : the males are sold at a high 
price, but the females are seldom alienated : and the birth of a 
noble foal was esteemed, among the tribes, as a subject of joy 
and mutual congratulation. These horses are educated in tents, 

1 Mecca. A city in Arabia and the birthplace of Mahomet, a celebrated 
religious teacher and pretended prophet, born about 750 a. d. He was the 
founder of one of the most widely diffused religions. (See Gibbon's "De- 
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap, i., and Trving's "Mahomet 
and his Successors.") 

2 flocks ^ /. e. gifts of nature 

II 



l62 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

among the children of the Arabs, with a tender famiUarity which 
trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They 
are accustomed only to walk and to gallop : their sensations are 
not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip : 
their powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit : 
but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, 
than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind : and if their 
friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop till 
he has recovered his seat. 

In the sands of Africa and Arabia the camel is a sacred and 
precious gift. That strong and patient beast of burden can per- 
form, without eating or drinking, a journey of several days ; and 
a reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large bag, a fifth 
stomach of the animal, whose body is imprinted with the marks 
of servitude : the larger breed is capable of transporting a weight 
of a thousand pounds ; and the dromedary, of a lighter and more 
active frame, outstrips the fleetest courser in the race. Alive 
or dead, almost every part of the camel is serviceable to man : 
her milk is plentiful and nutritious : the young and tender flesh 
has the taste of veal ; and the long hair, which falls each year 
and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the garments, the 
furniture,^ and the tents of the Bedoweens. 

The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme 
of praise among strangers and natives ; and the arts of contro- 
versy transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, 
in favor of the posterity of Ishmael.^ Some exceptions, that can 
neither be dissembled nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning 
as indiscreet as it is superfluous. Yet these exceptions are tempo- 
rary or local ; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the 
most powerful monarchies ; the armies of Sesostris ^ and Cyrus,** 



1 furnishings 

2 Ishmael was the son of Abraham and Hagar. and the supposed an- 
cestor of the Arabians 

3 Sesostris, an Egyptian king and warrior 

4 Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, — one of the great warriors 
mentioned in the Bible 



GIBBON 163 

of Pompey ^ and Trajan, "^ could never achieve the conquest 
of Arabia ; the present sovereign of the Turks may exercise a 
shadow of jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to soHcit the 
friendship of a people whom it is dangerous to provoke, and 
fruitless to attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are in- 
scribed on the character and country of the Arabs. Many ages 
before Mahomet, their intrepid valor had been severely felt by 
their neighbors, in offensive and defensive war. The patient and 
active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and 
discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels 
is abandoned to the women of the tribe ; but the martial youth, 
under the banner of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the 
field, to practice the exercise of the bow, the javehn, and the 
scymetar. 

The long memory of their independence is the firm&st pledge 
of its perpetuity, and succeeding generations are animated to 
prove their descent, and to maintain their inheritance. In the 
more simple state of the Arabs, the nation is free, because each 
of her sons disdains a base submission to the will of a master. 
His breast is fortified with the austere virtues of courage, patience, 
and sobriety ; the love of independence prompts him to exercise 
the habits of self-command ; and the fear of dishonor guards him 
from the meaner apprehension of pain, of danger, and of death. 
The gravity and firmness of the mind is conspicuous m his out- 
ward demeanor : his speech is slow, weighty, and concise ; he 
is seldom provoked to laughter ; his only gesture is that of strok- 
ing his beard, the venerable symbol of manhood ; and the sense 
of his own importance teaches him to accost his equals without 
levity, and his superiors without awe. 



1 Pompey, a Roman general, born 106 B. c. 

2 Trajan, a Roman emperor, born 53 a. d. 



l64 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

II 

The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has 
accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy ; 
and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of juris- 
prudence which they beheve and practice to the present hour. 
They pretend that, in the division of the earth, the rich and 
fertile chmates were assigned to other branches of the human 
family; and that the posterity of the outlaw Ishmael might re- 
cover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance of which he 
had been unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny,^ 
the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchandise : 
the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed or pillaged ; 
and their neighbors, since the remote times of Job and Sesostris. 
have beeiT the victims of their rapacious spirit. If a Bedoween 
discovers from afar a solitary traveler, he rides furiously against 
him, crying, with a loud voice, ''Undress thyself; thy aunt (wj' 
wife) is without a garment." A ready submission entitles him to 
mercy : resistance will provoke the aggressor, and his own blood 
must expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in legitimate 
defense. 

The nice sensibility of honor, which weighs the insult rather 
than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the quarrels of the 
Arabs : the honor of their women, and of their beards, is most 
easily wounded ; an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can 
be expiated only by the blood of the offender ; and such is their 
patient inveteracy, that they expect ^ whole months and years the 
opportunity of revenge. 

Whatever may be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is 
derived from the same original stock with the Hebrew, the 
Syriac, and the Chaldean tongues : the independence of the 
tribes was marked by their peculiar dialects ; but each, after 
their own, allowed a just preference to the pure and perspicuous 
idiom of Mecca. In Arabia, as well as in Greece, the perfection 

^ Pliny, a Roman historian ^ await 



GIBBON 165 

of language outstripped the refinement of manners ; and her 
speech could diversify the fourscore names of honey, the two 
hundred of a serpent, the five hundred of a lion, the thousand 
of a sword, at a time when this copious dictionary was intrusted 
to the memory of an illiterate people. The monuments of the 
Homerites were inscribed with an obsolete and mysterious char- 
acter; but the Cufic letters, the groundwork of the present 
English alphabet, were invented on the banks of the Euphrates ; 
and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by a stranger 
who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The arts 
of grammar, of meter, and of rhetoric were unknown to the 
freeborn eloquence of the Arabians ; but their penetration was 
sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious, and 
their more elaborate compositions were addressed with energy 
and effect to the minds of their hearers. The genius and merit 
of a rising poet was celebrated by the applause of his own and 
kindred tribes. The Arabian poets were the historians and 
moralists of the age ; and if they sympathized with the preju- 
dices, they inspired and crowned the virtues, of their countrymen. 
The indissoluble union of generosity and valor was the darling 
theme of their song ; and when they pointed their keenest satire 
against a despicable race, they affirmed, in the bitterness of re- 
proach, that the men knew not how to give, nor the women to 
deny. 

The same hospitality, which was practiced by Abraham, and 
celebrated by Homer, is still renewed in the camps of the 
Arabs. The ferocious Bedoweens, the terror of the desert, em- 
brace, without inquiry or hesitation, the stranger who dares to con- 
fide in their honor and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind 
and respectful : he shares the wealth, or the poverty, of his host ; 
and, after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his way, with 
thanks, with blessings, and, perhaps, with gifts. The heart and 
hand are more largely expanded by the wants of a brother or a 
friend ; but the heroic acts that could deserve the public applause 
must have surpassed the narrow measure of discretion and expe- 
rience. A dispute had arisen, who, among the citizens of Mecca, 



1 66 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

was entitled to the prize of generosity ; and a successive appli- 
cation was made to the three who were deemed most worthy of 
the trial. Abdallah, the son of Abbas, had undertaken a distant 
journey, and his foot was in the stirrup when he heard the voice 
of a suppliant. " O son of the uncle of the apostle of God, I am 
a traveler, and in distress !" He instantly dismounted to present 
the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison, and a purse of 
four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only the sword, either 
for its intrinsic value, or as a gift of an honored kinsman. The 
servant of Kais informed the second suppliant that his master 
was asleep ; but he immediately added, " Here is a purse of 
seven thousand pieces of gold (it is all we have in the house) ; 
and here is an order that will entitle you to a camel and a 
slave ' ' : the master, as soon as he awoke, praised and enfran- 
chised his faithful steward, with a gentle reproof, that by respect- 
ing his slumbers he had stinted his bounty. The third of these 
heroes, the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer was supporting 
his steps on the shoulders of two slaves. "Alas!" he replied, 
" my coffers are empty ! but these you may sell : if you refuse, 
I renounce them." At these words, pushing away the youths, 
he groped along the wall with his staff. The character of Hatem 
is the perfect model of Arabian virtue ; he was brave and liberal, 
an eloquent poet, and a successful robber : forty camels were 
roasted at his hospitable feast ; and at the prayer of a suppli- 
ant enemy he restored both the captives and the spoil. The 
freedom of his countrymen disdained the laws of justice ; 
they proudly indulged the spontaneous impulse of pity and 
benevolence. 



My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm, and the en- 
thusiasm which I do not feel I have ever scorned to affect. But, 
at the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor 
express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first 
approached and entered the Eternal City. After a sleepless 
night I trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum ; each 



GIBBON 167 

memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar 
fell, was at once present to my eye ; and several days of intoxi- 
cation were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and 
minute investigation. . . . 

It was at Rome on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing 
amidst the ruins of the capitol, while the barefooted friars were 
singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter [the church of the 
Franciscans], that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of 
the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was cir- 
cumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the empire ; 
and, though my reading and reflections began to point towards 
that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, 
before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious 
work. . . . 

It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, 
between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last 
line of the last page of the " Rise and Fall of the Roman Em- 
pire " in a summer-house in my garden.^ After laying down my 
pen, I took several turns in a covered walk of acacias, which 
commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the moun- 
tains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb 
of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was 
silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on recovery 
of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But 
my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread 
over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave 
of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might 
be the future date ^ of my History, the life of the historian must 
be short and precarious. — From the " Autobiography ^ 

^ Gibbon was then living at Lausanne, Switzerland. 
2 duration 



l68 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

JEFFERSON 

1 743-1 826 

Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia in 1743, and died in 1826. He 
was President of the United States, 1801-9; was Governor of Virginia, Mem- 
ber of Congress, Minister to France, Secretary of State, etc. He is best 
known in literature by his " Autobiography " and by his " Notes on Vir- 
ginia," privately printed in Paris in 1782. 




Edward Everett said of him: "On Jefferson rests the imperishable re- 
nown of having penned the 'Declaration of Independence.' To have been 
the instrument of expressing, in one brief, decisive act, the consecrated wil 
and resolution of a whole family of States ; of unfolding, in one all-important 
manifesto, the causes, the motives, and the justification of this great move- 
ment in human affairs ; to have been permitted to give the impress and pecu- 
liarity of his mind to a charter of public rights, destined to an importance 



JEFFERSON ^ ♦ 169 

in the estimation of men equal to anything human ever borne on parchment 
or expressed in the visible signs of thought, — this is the glory of Thomas 
Jefferson." 

Professor Nichol says of Jefferson : " The great antagonist of the feder- 
alists is one of the most conspicuous figures in American thought. He is 
the representative in chief of the revolutionary spirit of his age and country. 
While his rival compeers stood firmly on the defensive against the encroach- 
ments of an arbitrary government, Jefferson's desire was, in politics as in 
speculation generally, to break with the past. More than any other great 
statesman of his age, he aspired to be an author ; and to this title the best 
passages of his ' Notes on Virginia,' his 'Autobiography,' and his 'Corre- 
spondence ' give him a fair claim." 

In the series of powerful antitheses contained in the second extract here 
made, from a private letter, Jefferson's views of the true intent and rightful 
construction of the Constitution are concisely declared. In the second year 
following the writing of this letter he became President of the United 
States. 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very- 
first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that 
of Newton, Bacon, or Locke ; ^ and as far as he saw, no judg- 
ment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little 
aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence 
the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived 
from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected 
whatever was best ; and certainly no general ever planned his 
battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of 
the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden 
circumstances, he was slow in a readjustment. The consequence 
was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy 
in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, 
meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps 
the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never 

1 Locke was the author of the celebrated " Essay on the Human 
Understanding." 



I/O CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely 
weighed ; refraining if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, 
going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His 
integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have 
ever known ; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friend- 
ship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, 
in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. 

His temper was naturally irritable and high toned ; but reflection 
and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over 
it. If ever, however, it broke its bounds, he was most tremen- 
dous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact ; 
liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility ; but frowning 
and unyielding on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on 
his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections ; but he 
exacdy calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem 
proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature 
exactly what one would wish ; his deportment easy, erect, and 
noble, the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure 
that could be seen on horseback. Although in the circle of his 
friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a 
free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above 
mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of 
words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was 
unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather 
diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired 
by conversation * with the world, for his education was merely 
reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added 
surveying at a later day. His time was employed in action 
chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English 
history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, 
with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of 
his leisure hours within doors. 

On the whole, his character was, in its mass perfect, in noth- 
ing bad, in few points indifferent ; and it may truly be said, that 

^ intercourse 



JEFFERSON 171 

never did nature and fortune combine more completely to make 
a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with 
whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remem- 
brance. For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading 
the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war for 
the establishment of its independence ; of conducting its coun- 
cils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and 
principles, until it had settled down mto a quiet and orderly 
train ; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of 
his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world 
furnishes no other example. 



A PROFESSION OF POLITICAL FAITH 1 

I SHALL make to you a profession of my political faith, in 
confidence that you will consider every future imputation on me 
of a contrary complexion, as bearing on its front the mark of 
falsehood and calumny. 

I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation 
of our present federal constitution, according to the true sense 
in which it was adopted by the states, that in which it was advo- 
cated by its friends, and not that which its enemies apprehended, 
who therefore became its enemies : and I am opposed to the 
monarchizing its features by the forms of its administration, with 
a view to conciliate a first transition to a president and senate 
for life, and from that to an hereditary tenure of these offices, 
and thus to worm out the elective principle. 

I am for preserving to the states the powers not yielded by 
them to the Union, and to the legislature of the Union its 
constitutional share in the division of powers : and I am not 
for transferring all the powers of the states to the general 
government, and all those of that government to the executive 
branch. 



Letter to Elbridge Gerry, Jan. 26, 1799. 



172 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying 
all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of 
the national debt : and not for a multiplication of officers and 
salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing by every 
device the public debt, on the principle of its being a public 
blessing. 

I am for relying, for internal defence, on our militia solely, till 
actual invasion, and for such a naval force only as may protect 
our coasts and harbors from such depredations as we have 
experienced : and not for a standing army in time of peace, 
which may overawe the public sentiment ; nor for a navy, which, 
by its own expenses, and the eternal wars in which it will impli- 
cate us, will grind us with public burthens, and sink us under 
them. 

I am for free commerce with all nations ; political connection 
with none ; and litde or no diplomatic establishment. And I 
am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of 
Europe, entering that field of slaughter to preserve their bal- 
ance, or joining in the confederacy of kings to war against the 
principles of liberty. 

I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to 
bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another : for 
freedom of the press, and against all violations of the constitution 
to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, 
just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents. 

And I am for encouraging the progress of Science in all its 
branches : and not for raising a hue and cry against the sacred 
name of philosophy ; for awing the human mind by stories of 
raw-head and bloody-bones to a distrust of its own vision, and to 
repose implicitly on that of others. 



BURNS 



173 



BURNS 

1 759-1 796 

Robert Burns, the son of a small farmer, was born near Ayr, Scotland, 
in 1759, and died in 1796. He manifested at an early age an eager appetite 
for learning ; but his opportunities for gratifying it were few : in the country 
school he gained the rudiments of an education in English branches, and in 




lP\()d?A^ (f^^ynj. 



later life learned something of French, Latin, and the higher mathematics. 
It is worthy of note that one of his favorite books, in boyhood, was Shake- 
speare's plays. 

At the age of sixteen he began to write verses, striving to express in rhyme 
the emotions excited by his first affair of the heart. These youthful compo- 
sitions were circulated in manuscript among his acquaintances, and finally 
came to the notice of some persons of literary taste, who persuaded Burns to 



174 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

publish a volume. The venture at once brought him fame. He visited 
Edinburgh on invitation of Dr. Blacklock, and was well received in the 
brilliant society of that city. A second edition of his poems, published in 
1787, yielded him a profit of seven hundred pounds. But his gain in fame 
and money from his visit to the Scottish capital was more than offset by the 
formation of habits which were destined to impede his literary progress 
and to bring him to an early grave. His rank among poets it is not easy to 
determine, though Lord Byron placed him among the first. It is probable 
that in this estimate Byron regarded his promise rather than his performance. 
But it may safely be said that of all poets who have sprung from the people, 
receiving almost no aid from education, he was one of the very greatest. 
He was the poet of passion and feeling; his utterances were simple and 
natural, owing none of their force or beauty to art. 

In the course of a sketch of the life and work of Burns, Robert Louis 
Stevenson says : " In an age when poetry had become abstract and conven- 
tional, instead of continuing to deal with shepherds, thunder-storms, and 
personification, Burns dealt with the actual circumstances of his life, however 
matter-of-fact and sordid these might be. And in a time when English versi- 
fication was particularly stiff, lame, and feeble, and words were used with 
ultra-academical timidity, he wrote verses that were easy, racy, graphic, and 
forcible, and used language with absolute tact and courage, as it seemed 
most fit to give a clear impression." 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN 

When chill November's surly blast 

Made fields and forests bare, 
One evening, as I wandered forth 

Along the banks of Ayr, 
I spied a man whose aged step 

Seemed weary, worn with care : 
His face was furrowed o'er with years, 

And hoary was his hair. 

''Young stranger, whither wanderest thou? 

Began the reverend sage ; 
** Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 

Or youthful pleasure's rage? 



BURNS 175 



Or haply, prest with cares and woes, 

Too soon thou hast began ^ 
To wander forth, with me, to mourn 

The miseries of man ? 

" The sun that overhangs yon moors, 

Outspreading far and wide, 
Where hundreds labor to support 

A haughty lordling's pride, — 
I 've seen yon weary winter sun 

Twice forty times return ; 
And every time has added proofs 

That man was made to mourn. 

" O man, while in thy early years. 

How prodigal of time ! 
Misspending all thy precious hours. 

Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
Alternate follies take the sway : 

Licentious passions burn ; 
Which tenfold force give Nature's law, 

That man was made to mourn. 

'' Look not alone on youthful prime. 

Or manhood's active might ; 
Man then is useful to his kind. 

Supported in his right ; 
But see him on the edge of life, 

With cares and sorrows worn, 
Then age and want, O ill-matched pair ! 

Show man was made to mourn. 

" A few seem favorites of fate. 
In pleasure's lap carest ; ^ 

1 Note the "poetic license " for the sake of rhyme. 
'^ poetic form of caressed 



176 CAT H CARTS LITERARY READER 

Yet think not all the rich and great 

Are Hkewise truly blest. 
But O, what crowds in every land, 

All wretched and forlorn, 
Through weary life this lesson learn, 

That man was made to mourn. 

" Many and sharp the numerous ills. 

Inwoven with our frame. 
More pointed still we make ourselves, 

Regret, remorse, and shame ! 
And man, whose heaven- erected face 

The smiles of love adorn, 
Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn ! 

" See yonder poor, o'erlabored wight. 

So abject, mean, and vile. 
Who begs a brother of the earth 

To give him leave to toil ; 
And see his lordly fellow-worm 

The poor petition spurn. 
Unmindful though a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 

'' If I 'm designed yon lordling's slave, - 

By Nature's law designed, — 
Why was an independent wish 

E'er planted in my mind ? 
If not, why am I subject to 

His cruelty or scorn? 
Or why has man the will and power 

To make his fellow mourn ? 

•' Yet let not this too much, my son, 
Disturb thy youthful breast : 



BURNS 177 

This partial view of human-kind 

Is surely not the best ! 
The poor, oppressed; honest man 

Had never, sure, been born, 
Had there not been some recompense 

To comfort those that mourn ! 

" O Death ! the poor man's dearest friend, 

The kindest and the best ! 
Welcome the hour my aged limbs 

Are laid with thee at rest. 
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow. 

From pomp and pleasure torn ; 
But O, a blest relief to those 

That weary- lad en mourn ! " 



DESPONDENCY 

Oppressed with grief, oppressed with care, 
A burden more than I can bear, 

I set me down and sigh ; 
O life ! thou art a galling load. 
Along a rough, a weary road, 
To wretches such as I ! 
Dim-backward as I cast my view, 

What sickening scenes appear ! 
What sorrows yet may pierce me through. 
Too justly I may fear. 
Still caring, despairing. 

Must be my bitter doom ; 

My woes here shall close ne'er. 

But with the closing tomb. 

Happy, ye sons of busy life, 
Who, equal to the bustling strife. 
No other view regard ! 
12 



178 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

E'en when the wished end 's denied, 
Yet while the busy means are plied, 
They bring their own reward : 
Whilst I, a hope-abandoned wight, 

Unfitted with an aim, 
Meet every sad returning night, 
. And joyless morn the same ; 
You, bustling and justling. 

Forget each grief and pain ; 
I, listless, yet restless, 

Find every prospect vain. 

How blest the Solitary's lot. 
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot, 
Within his humble cell — 
The cavern wild with tangling roots, 
Sits o'er his newly-gathered fruits. 

Beside his crystal well ! 
Or, haply, to his evening thought, 

By unfrequented stream, 
The ways of men are distant brought, 
A faint- collected dream : 
While praising, and raising 

His thoughts to Heaven on high, 
As wandering, meandering,^ 
He views the solemn sky. 

Than I, no lonely hermit placed 
Where never human footstep traced. 

Less fit to play the part ; 
The lucky moment to improve. 
And just to stop, and just to move. 

With self-respecting ^ art : 
But ah ! those pleasures, loves, and joys 

Which I too keenly taste, 



1 Derivation ? ^ with an eye to self-interest 



BURNS 179 

The Solitary can despise, 

Can want, and yet be blest ! 
He needs not, he heeds not, 

Or human love or hate, 
Whilst I here must cry here 
At perfidy ingrate ! ^ 

O enviable early days. 

When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze, 

To care, to guilt unknown ! 
How ill exchanged for riper times. 
To feel the follies or the crimes 

Of others or my own ! 
Ye tiny elves ^ that guiltless sport, 

Like linnets in the bush. 
Ye little know the ills ye court. 
When manhood is your wish ! 
— The losses, the crosses. 

That active man engage ! 
The fears all, the tears all. 
Of dim-declining age. 



TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY 

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOW, IN APRIL, 1 786 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r. 
Thou 's met me in an evil hour ; 
For I maun crush amang the stoure ^ 

Thy slender stem. 
To spare thee now is past my power, 

Thou bonnie gem. 

" ingrate," adj. = ungrateful ^ what is the meaning ? ^ dust 



l80 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Alas ! it 's no thy neebor sweet, 
The bonnie lark, companion meet ! 
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ^ 

\Vi' spreckled breast, 
When upward springing, blythe to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter- biting north 
Upon thy early humble birth ; 
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm. 
Scarce reared above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield. 
High sheltering woods an' wa's maun shield 
But thou, beneath the random bield '^ 

O' clod or stane, 
Adorns the histie ^ stibble-field, 

Unseen, alane. 

There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise : 
But now the share uptears thy bed, 

And low thou lies ! . . . 

Such is the fate of simple bard. 

On life's rough ocean luckless starred ! 

Unskillful he to note the card 

Of prudent lore, 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 

And whelm him o'er ! 



wet 



2 shelter ^ barren 



BURNS i8i 



Such fate to suffering worth is given, 
Who long with wants and woes has striven, 
By human pride or cunning driven 

To misery's brink, 
Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, 

He, ruined, sink ! 

E'en thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, 
That fate is thine — no distant date ; 
Stern Ruin's plowshare drives, elate, 

Full on thy bloom. 
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight, 

Shall be thy doom. 



BANNOCKBURN 

At Bannockburn the English lay, — 
The Scots they were na far away, 
But waited for the break o' day 
That glinted in the east. 

But soon the sun broke through the heath ^ 
And lighted up that field o' death, 
When Bruce, wi' saul- inspiring breath. 
His heralds thus addressed : — 

" Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led. 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to glorious victory ! 



1 This word is always pronounced in Scotland as the rhyme here 
requires. 



CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

" Now 's the day, and now 's the hour ; 
See the front of battle lower ; 
See approach proud Edward's power, — 
Edward ! chains and slavery ! 

" Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
Wha sae base as be a slave? 

Traitor ! coward ! turn and flee ! 

'- Wha for Scotland's king and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Freeman stand, or freeman fa', 
Caledonia ! on wi' me ! 

*' By oppression's woes and pains ! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 

But they shall — they shall be free ! 

^' Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty 's in every blow ! 

Forward ! let us do or die ! " 



But pleasures are like poppies spread, 

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 

Or like the snow-fall in the river, 

A moment white, — then melts forever ; 

Or like the borealis race, 

That flit ere you can point their place ; 

Or like the rainbow's lovely form 

Evanishing amid the storm. 

Frof?i ''Tarn O^Shanter 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 



183 




LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 



Daniel De Foe, 1661-1731, political pamphleteer, republican agitator, 
and writer of fiction ; wrote an argumentative poem " The True- 
born Englishman," " Hymn to the Pillory," '' Journal of the Great 
Plague," and his immortal " Robinson Crusoe," besides very many 
political tracts. 

Matthew Prior, 1664- 172 1, poet and diplomatist; his best-known 
works are " Henry and Emma," " Solomon," and his numerous 
love-songs. 

Bernard Mandeville, 1670-1733, physician and ethnologist; author 
of " The Fable of the Bees." 

Sir Richard Steele, 1 671 -1729, founder and editor of •' The Tatler ; " 
contributor to " The Spectator ; " humorist and moral essayist. 

Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, dissenting clergyman and religious poet; 
famous for his psalms and hymns. 

Thomas Parnell, 1679-1717, poet; '^ The Hermit" is his only con- 
siderable production. 

Edward Young, 1684-1765, poet; author of "Night Thoughts,'' 



1 84 



CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 



George Berkeley, 1684-1753, Anglican bishop, theologian and philo- 
sopher; of his works "The Theory of Vision," and "The Minute 
Philosopher " are best known. 
Allan Ramsay, 1685-1758, Scottish poet; the most familiar of his 
productions is '■ The Gentle Shepherd," with its scenes of rural 
hfe. 
John Gay, 1688-1732, poet and dramatist; author of " The Shepherd's 
Week," a pastoral poem; his most popular play is " The Beggar's 
Opera." 
Samuel Richardson, 1689-1761, "the father of the English novel ; " 

author of " Clarissa Harlowe," " Sir 
Charles Grandison," and " Pamela." 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1690- 
1762, traveler, and author of cele- 
brated " Letters." 
John Byrom, 1 691-1763, numerous 

short didactic poems. 
Joseph Butler, 1692-1752, Anglican 
bishop ; author of the famous " Anal- 
ogy of Religion." 
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of 
/%vnaf^^n )SAy^ar% Chesterfield, 1694-1773, famous in 

^ literature for his cynical "Letters 

to his Son," which were never in- 
tended for the public eye. A later series of letters "to his God- 
son" is now (1890) for the first time pubHshed. Both collections 
are luminous with reflections upon the men and affairs of his time. 
Henry Home, Lord Kames, 1696-1782, Scottish jurist; renowned for 

his " Elements of Criticism." 
James Thomson, 1 700-1 748, Scottish poet; author of "The Seasons,'' 

and "The Castle of Indolence." 
Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, American divine and metaphysician; 
his principal work is " The Freedom of the Will ; " grandfather of 
Aaron Burr. 
Henry Fielding, 1 707-1 754, English novelist; "Tom Jones," "Joseph 

Andrews," and " Amelia " are his more important novels. 
David Hume, 1711-1776, Scottish philosopher and historian; he 
wrote "A Treatise on Human Nature," "A History of England," 
and many moral and philosophical essays. 
Laurence Sterne, 171 3-1 768, clergyman and humorous writer; author 
of "Tristram Shandy" and the "Sentimental Journey." 




NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 



185 



William Shenstoue, 1714-1763, English pastoral poet; "The School- 
mistress " is his best work. 

Thomas Gray, 1716-1771, scholar and poet; "Elegy Written in a 
Country Churchyard," " Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton Col- 
lege," " Ode on Adversity," and many shorter poems. 

Horace Walpole, 1717-1797, author and wit; "Castle of Otranto," 
and " Letters and Memoirs." 

Gilbert White, 1720-1793, English clergyman; distinguished for his 
" Natural History of Selborne." 

William Collins, 1 721- 1759, EngHsh 
lyrical poet ; " The Passions " and 
the " Ode to Liberty " are the best 
remembered of his poems. 

William Robertson, 1721-1793, Scot- 
tish historian ; " History of Scot- 
land," " History of the Reign of 
Charles V.," and other works. 

Tobias Smollett, 1721-1771, novelist 
and historian ; " Peregrine Pickle," 
" Roderick Random," and " Hum- 
phrey Clinker " are his best-known 
novels. 

Adam Smith, 1723- 1790, Scottish po- 
litical economist; author of "An 
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes 
of the Wealth of Nations." 

Sir "William Blackstone, 1 723-1 780, English jurist; 
" Commentaries on the Laws of England."' 

Joseph Priestley, 1 733-1 804, English Unitarian clergyman and natu- 
ral philosopher; friend of Franklin; his best-known work is 
" Matter and Spirit." 

James Beattie, 1735-1803, Scottish poet; author of "The Minstrel." 

John Home Tooke, 1736-18 12, politician and philologist; author of 
" The Diversions of Purley." 

James Boswell, 1740-1795, famous for his "Life of Dr. Samuel 
Johnson." 

William Paley, 1743-1805, English theologian; celebrated for 
his " Evidences of Christianity," and his " Elements of Moral 
Philosophy." 

Sir William Jones, 1 746-1 794, Oriental scholar, and author of many 
short poems of great beauty. 




ADAM SMTi-H 



author of 



1 86 



CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 



Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751-1816, politician and dramatist; 

two of his plays, "The Rivals" and "The School for Scandal," 

still keep the stage. 
Dugald Stewart, 1 753-1828, Scottish metaphysician and political 

economist; author of "The Philosophy of the Hmnan Mind." 
George Crabbe, 1 754-1 832, English poet; author of "The Parish 

Register," " The Village," and " Tales in Verse." 
" Junius," unknown author of political controversial letters which 

for bitterness of invective and satirical severity have never been 

equaled in all literature. These letters appeared in the London 
"Pubhc Advertiser," beginning in 1769, and continuing for about 

three years. They have been variously attributed to Burke, 

Lyttelton, and Sir Philip Francis ; but in each case upon conjecture 

that has little substantial argument to support it. 




LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 187 



V 

LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

'THHE literature of our own times, the work of writers 
"^ some of whom are hving, and many of whom flour- 
ished but a generation ago, furnishes a study that is 
naturally more attractive to us than is that of the litera- 
ture of earlier centuries. With the modern diffusion of 
intelligence among the many, has come a greater demand 
for reading, and books have been multiplied to meet it. 
American literature has come into being, and grown with 
the growth of our country. The editor has thought well, 
therefore, to devote the larger share of the pages of this 
book to an exhibition of contemporary letters, and es- 
pecially to make a very full presentation of the writings 
of American authors. 

Time is the test of a classic, and time has allowed 
authoritative judgments to be passed upon the works of 
earlier English writers ; but it is, in the nature of things, 
impossible to prefigure what the criticism of the twentieth 
century will say of the literature of the nineteenth, or to 
set down now anything more than an outline of its broader 
characteristics. In a general v\^ay, then, it may be said 
that in this century the literature of our language is 
marked by radical newness of thought and feeling in all 
its departments. Its history has been generalized out of 
the ruts of mere chronicle, its poetry has been liberated 
from tradition in subject and in form, its fiction has 
become introspective and reflective, the modern essayist 
has appeared, and the influence and spirit of science have 
been over all. This may be the most plainly seen in the 



1 88 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

department of history. Gibbon's great work, from which 
selection was made in earher pages, bears evidence of 
laborious and discriminating research. It is carefully 
planned and highly organized. It is, beyond dispute, a 
great piece of classic English prose. But it can not be 
regarded as contributing anything to the philosophy of 
history. In the more than a thousand years covered by 
the " Decline and Fall," Gibbon tells us much of what 
happened, and when and how events took place ; but he 
scarcely attempts to explain to us the " why " of their hap- 
pening. Yet this period abounded in events of decisive 
influence upon all later times. Gibbon really affords us no 
explanation of the great fact that gives his work its name. 
The historic spirit of our own time essays to grasp under- 
lying causes beneath events, as is disclosed even in titles, 
such as " The Credibility of Early Roman History," *' The 
Intellectual Development of Europe," '' History of Euro- 
pean Morals," '' History of the English People," etc. 

In science itself men's views have steadily been widening 
since Newton proved that the forces which keep the planets 
in their orbits are identical with those familiar to us every 
day upon the surface of the earth. Later, Lyell showed 
that just such physical processes as are now going on 
around us would, in ages past, have brought about the 
changes in inorganic nature which distinguish one geolog- 
ical ** epoch " from another. In more recent years Darwin 
and Wallace have shown that the living forms about us 
are derived, through long ages and by successive slight 
modifications, from others, fewer in number and simpler 
in organization. This great progress in science has neces- 
sarily affected all departments of thought and of the litera- 
ture which is its expression. 

We, to whom freedom of inquiry and of life, the 
achievements of science and the consequent broadening 
of men's views, are commonplace?, can hardly imagine 



LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 189 

how profoundly thought was stimulated and activities were 
awakened by the events and consequences of the American 
Revolution and of the later Revolution in France. These 
upheavals were accompanied and followed by a universal 
excitation of feeling, and the English literature of the early 
part of our century shows clearly that the intellectual en- 
ergies of thinking men were deeply aroused. This is par- 
ticularly to be seen in the poetry of that time, which is of 
a higher order than any that had appeared since Milton. 
It needs only to point to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, 
and Byron to make manifest how true this is, Shelley, 
Keats, and Campbell were other poets of the same epoch. 
How far the product of these minds surpassed in spirit and 
in style the verse of the previous age may be seen from 
the merest comparison; their excellence was such that 
one critic has ventured even further in the extreme asser- 
tion that '' any comparison of the Elizabethan poetry with 
that of the nineteenth century would show a predilection 
for the mere name or dress of antiquity." 

The English prose of the early part of our century was 
chiefly of two kinds, — the novels and romances, in which 
field Scott was easily preeminent ; and the remarkable 
essays which were published in the Reviews, then first 
established. These essays took the form of literary criti- 
cism and of speculation in social and political philosophy, 
and the principal writers in this department were Lamb, 
De Quincey, and Macaulay. Landor's best work was done 
in the first half of this century, as was that of Carlyle, 
though both of them lived and wrote much later. 

Coming nearer to our own day, we find the romances 
of Scott succeeded by the novels of Dickens, Thackeray, 
and "George Eliot;" the verse of the Lake Poets by 
that of Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Swinburne, and Edwin 
Arnold ; history reviving in Macaulay, Froude, Freeman, 
Buckle, and Green ; and science opening new pages to us 



IQO CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

in the works of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, and 
many others. 

Ninety years ago it could hardly be said that such a 
thing as American literature had existence. Jonathan 
Edwards had discoursed profoundly upon free-will and 
necessity, and Jefferson upon affairs ; yet with the ex- 
ception of Franklin, our country had not then produced 
any writer who could, in strictness, be called a ** man of 
letters." But as the century nears its close, we are able 
to say that there is no department of literature to which 
American volumes have not been added, and these of the 
highest worth. Bancroft, Hildreth, Prescott, and Motley 
in history; Fiske, Emerson, and Draper in philosophy; 
Dana, Gray, and Agassiz in science; Irving, Hawthorne, 
Cooper, and Howells in fiction ; and Bryant, Poe, Long- 
fellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell in song, — have 
created a literature that is American. 

To this growth of a literature of our own, changes of 
conditions constantly going on about us, and therefore but 
little noticed, have greatly contributed. Every town has 
its newspaper and its public library; every village its 
common-school ; every fireside its books and periodical 
literature. Paper-making is the chief industry of many 
thriving factory towns; invention has cheapened printing; 
in all large cities the publishing business is an important 
interest. Illiteracy has almost wholly disappeared. Every- 
body reads, and authorship thus finds both incentive and 
reward. With the exception of the region lying within a 
radius of five hundred miles of London, no other part of 
the world contains so many " consumers " of literature as 
does our own country. 

The reading and study of the texts which have been 
selected for the later pages of this volume must afford 
some view of the literature of our own times, and tend 
to create an appetite for whatever in it is best. 



LANDOR 



191 



LANDOR 

1775-1864 

Walter Savage Landor was born of a wealthy Warwickshire family 
early in 1775, and died in Italy in the year 1864. Of this life of ninety 
years, seventy were actively devoted to authorship. His first considerable 
work was the epic poem "Gebir," published in 1798, and he brought his 
labors to a close in 1863 by the publication of his " Heroic Idyls," — a 
collection of classical dialogues. 




The poet Stedman says of Landor : " He was the pioneer of the late Eng- 
lish school; and among recent poets, though far from being the greatest in 
achievement, was the most self-reliant, the most versatile, and one of the 
most imaginative. His style, thought, and versatility were Victorian rather 
than Georgian ; they are now seen to belong to that school of which Tenny- 
son is by eminence the representative. Radically a poet, he ranks among 
the best essayists of his time ; and he shares this distinction in common with 
Milton, Coleridge, Emerson, and other poets, in various eras, who have been 
intellectual students and thinkers." 



192 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Landor's more important works are four dramatic pieces — the best 
known of which is his "Count Julian" — and his "Imaginary Conversa- 
tions." Of these latter, two are of the highest order of literary merit, — 
"The Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare Touching Deer- 
Stealing," and "Pericles and Aspasia." Of the " Citation of Shakespeare," 
Lamb declared that " only two men could have written it, — he who wrote it, 
and the man it was written on." 

Landor also produced very many short poems and lyrics of great beauty. 
Lowell has said of him that, " excepting Shakespeare, no other writer has 
furnished us with so many delicate aphorisms of human nature." 



OLIVER CROMWELL AND WALTER NOBLE i 

Cromwell. What brings thee back from Staffordshire, friend 
Walter? 

Noble. I hope, General Cromwell, to persuade you that the 
death of Charles^ will be considered by all Europe as a most 
atrocious action. 

Cromwell. Thou hast already persuaded me : what then ? 

Noble. Surely, then, you will prevent it, for your authority is 
great. Even those who upon their consciences found him guilty 
would remit the penalty of blood, some from policy, some from 
mercy. I have conversed with Hutchinson, with Ludlow, your 
friend and mine, with Henry Nevile, and Walter Long : you will 
oblige these worthy friends, and unite in your favor the suffrages ^ 
of the truest and trustiest men living. There are many others, 
with whom I am in no habits of intercourse, who are known to 
entertain the same sentiments; and these also are among the 
country gentlemen, to whom our parliament owes the better part 
of its reputation. 

Cromwell. You country gentlemen bring with you into the 
People's House a freshness and sweet savor which our citizens 
lack mightily. I would fain merit your esteem, heedless of those 



1 from Landor's " Imaginary Conversations 

2 Charles I., afterwards beheaded 
8 /. e. the influence and support 



LANDOR 193 

pursy fellows from hulks and warehouses, with one ear lappeted 
by the pen behind it, and the other an heirloom,^ as Charles 
would have had it, in Laud's star-chamber.^ Oh, they are proud 
and bloody men ! My heart melts ; but, alas ! my authority is 
null : I am the servant of the Commonwealth. I will not, dare 
not, betray it. If Charles Stuart had threatened my death only, 
in the letter we ripped out of the saddle, I would have reproved 
him manfully and turned him adrift : but others are concerned ; 
lives more precious than mine, worn as it is with fastings, prayers, 
long services, and preyed upon by a pouncing^ disease. The 
Lord hath led him into the toils laid for the innocent. Foolish 
man ! he never could eschew evil counsel. 

Noble. In comparison with you, he is but as a pinnacle to a 
buttress. I acknowledge his weaknesses, and cannot wink upon 
his crimes : but that which you visit as the heaviest of them, per- 
haps was not so, although the most disastrous to both parties, — 
the bearing of arms against his people. He fought for what he 
considered his hereditary property ; we do the same : should we 
be hanged for losing a lawsuit? 

Cromwell. No, unless it is the second. Thou talkest finely 
and foolishly, Wat, for a man of thy calm discernment. If a 
rogue holds a pistol to my breast, do I ask him who he is? Do 
I care whether his doublet be of catskin or of dogskin? Fie 
upon such wicked * sophisms ! Mar\^elous, how the devil works 
upon good men's minds ! Friend ! friend ! hast thou lost thy 
recollection? On the third of June, 1628, an usher stood at the 
door of our Commons-house, to hinder any member from leaving 
it, under pain of being sent to the Tower. On the fifth of the 
same month, the Speaker said he had received the King's order 

^ Cutting off the ears was one of the brutal punishments common in judi- 
cial sentences of earlier times. This suggestion that the sparing of an ear 
constituted it a sort of "heirloom" of the tribunal, is thus seen to be a 
satirical pleasantry on the part of Cromwell. 

- a secret court of criminal jurisdiction, acting without a jury 

3 piercing, like talons 

4 baneful, pernicious ; an obsolete meaning, used again on the next page 
in " wicked temptation " 

13 



194 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

to interrupt any who should utter a word against his ministers. 
In the following year, we might have justly hanged him for the 
crime of forgery, seeing that on the twenty-first of January he 
commanded his printer, Norton, to falsify the text of his own 
Declaratio7i, in which he had acknowledged our rights, and had 
been paid handsomely for the acknowledgment. I sorely fear 
the month of January is marked in the Calendar by the finger of 
the Almighty, for the heavy chastisement of this misdeed. We 
must take heed unto our ways, and never again be led into the 
wicked temptation of trusting the false and the reprobate. Equity 
might demand from the traitor more than his worthless and per- 
nicious life. Equity might retaliate on him what Eliot and other 
most innocent and most virtuous men have suffered : pestilential 
imprisonment, lingering, painful, incurable disease, fetters and 
thumbscrews, racks and mutilations. Should the guiltless have 
suffered these things rather than the guilty? — the defender of his 
home and property rather than the robber who broke into them? 
If the extinction of a spark prevents worse things than the confla- 
gration of twenty cities, if it prevents the expansion of principles 
endemically noxious^ through incalculable ages, such as slavish 
endurance and all unmanly propensities, I would never take by 
the collar him who resolutely setteth his foot thereon. Whether 
a grain of dust be blown away in the morning, in the noon, or in 
the evening, what matter? But it imports very seriously whether 
it be blown in the eyes and darken the sight of a nation. This is 
the difference between him who dies in the solitude of his cham- 
ber, and him whom halberds, by God's ordinance, may surround 
upon the scaffold. 

Noble. From so cruel an infliction let me hope our unfortunate 
king may be exempted. He was always more to be dreaded by 
his friends than by his enemies, and now by neither. 

Cromwell. God forbid that Englishman should be feared by 
Englishman 1 but to be daunted by the weakest, to bend before 
the worst — I tell thee, Walter Noble, if Moses and the Prophets 



1 endemically noxious ; i. e. injurious to a whole nation 



LANDOR 195 

commanded me to this villainy, I would draw back and mount 
my horse. 

Noble. I wish that our history, already too dark with blood, 
should contain, as far as we are concerned in it, some unpolluted 
pages. 

Cromwell. 'Twere better, much better. Never shall I be 
called, I promise thee, an unnecessary shedder of blood. Remem- 
ber, my good prudent friend, of what materials our sectaries ^ are 
composed : what hostility against all eminence, what rancor 
against all glory. Not only kingly power offends them, but every 
other ; and they talk of puttmg to the sword ^ as if it were the 
quietest, gentlest, and most ordinary thing in the world. The 
knaves ^ even dictate from their stools and benches to men in 
armor, bruised and bleeding for them ; and with schooldames' 
scourges in their fists do they give counsel to those who protect 
them from the cart and halter. In the name of the Lord, I must 
spit outright (or worse) upon these crackling, bouncing fire- 
brands, before I can make them tractable. 

Noble. I lament their blindness ; but follies wear out the faster 
by being hard run upon. This fermenting sourness will presently 
turn vapid, and people will cast it out. I am not surprised that 
you are discontented and angry at what thwarts your better 
nature. But come, Cromwell, overlook them, despise them, and 
erect to yourself a glorious name by sparing a mortal enemy. 

Cromwell. A glorious name, by God's blessing, I will erect ; 
and all our fellow-laborers shall rejoice at it : but I see better 
than they do the blow descending on them, and my arm better 
than theirs can ward it off. Noble, thy heart overflows with kind- 
ness for Charles Stuart : if he were at liberty to-morrow by thy 
intercession, he would sign thy death-warrant the day after, for 
serving the Commonwealth. A generation of vipers ! ^ there is 
nothing upright or grateful in them. . . . 

1 dissenters; in this case the religious leaders among the Puritans 
■^ used half playfully and half in irritation 

^ St. Matthew xxiii. 33. Macaulay, in his essay upon the Puritans, speaks 
of" the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion." 



196 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

Noble. Hear me, Cromwell. Abolish the power of Charles ; 
extinguish not his virtues. Whatever is worthy to be loved for 
anything is worthy to be preserved. A wise and dispassionate 
legislator, if any such should arise among men, will not condemn 
to death him who has done, or is likely to do, more service than 
injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects to 
ours, and their business is never with virtues or with hopes. Jus- 
tice upon earth has forgotten half her lesson, and repeats the 
other half badly. God commanded her to reward and to punish. 
She would tell you that punishment is the reward of the wicked, 
and that the rewards of the good belong to Him whose delight is 
their distribution in another place. She is neither blind, as some 
have represented her, nor clear-sighted : she is one-eyed, and looks 
fixedly and fondly with her one eye upon edge-tools and halters. 
The best actions are never recompensed, and the worst are sel- 
dom chastised. The virtuous man passes by without a good-mo?'- 
row ^ from us, and the malefactor may w^alk at large where he will, 
provided he walk far enough from encroachment on our passions 
and their playthings. Let us, Cromwell, in God's name, turn the 
la\vs to their right intention ; let us render it the interest of all to 
love them and keep them holy. '^ They are at present, both in 
form and essence, the greatest curse that society labors under, — 
the scorn of the wicked, the consternation of the good, the refuge 
of those who violate, and the ruin of those who appeal to them. 

Cromwell. You have paid, I see, chancery fees,^ Walter. 

Noble. I should then have paid, not only \vhat is exorbitant, 
but what is altogether undue. Paying a lawyer in any court, 
we pay over again what we have paid before. If government 

1 The Old English form of " morrow " was morwe, morwening = morning. 
'\\vQ ■ai\.\xi2^\o\\ good-morrow iox good-morning is not now used. The phrase 
to-morrow is, literally, " in the morning." 

2 "love them and keep them holy." The terms are borrowed from 
Exodus XX. 

^ This is as much as to say that Noble, by the words just uttered, has 
shown himself so skillful a disputant that he must have had experience in 
the highest law-court; but in the reply which he makes in the next sentence 
Noble prefers to take Cromwell's words in their literal meaning. 



LANDOR 197 

has neglected to provide that our duties be taught us, and our 
Hves, property, and station in society be secured, what right 
has it to one farthing from us? For what else have our fore- 
fathers and ourselves been taxed? — for what else are magistrates 
of any kind appointed? There is an awfulness in symmetry 
which chastens even the wildest, and there is a terror in dis- 
tortion at which they strike and fly. It is thus in regard to 
law. We should be slow in the censure of princes, and slower 
in the chastisement. Kingship is a profession which has pro- 
duced few among the most illustrious, many among the most 
despicable, of the human race. As in our days they are edu- 
cated and treated, he is deserving of no slight commendation 
who rises in moral worth to the level of his lowest subject ; so 
manifold and so great are the impediments. Reverting to the 
peculiar case of Charles, in my opinion you are ill justified by 
morality or policy in punishing him capitally. The representa- 
tives of the people ought to superintend the education of their 
princes ; where they have omitted it, the mischief and the respon- 
sibiHty rest with them. As kings are the administrators of the 
commonwealth, they must submit their whole household to the 
national inspection ; on which principle, the preceptors of their 
children should be appointed by parliament ; and the pupils, 
until they have attained their majority, should be examined twice 
annually on the extent and on the direction of their studies, in 
the presence of seven men at least, chosen out of the Commons- 
house by ballot.^ Nothing of the kind having been done, and 
the principles of this unfortunate king having been distorted 
by a wrong education and retained in their obliquity by evil coun- 
sellors, I would now, on the reclamation,^ both of generosity and 
of justice, try clemency. If it fails, his adherents will be con- 
founded at his perfidy, and, expecting a like return for their 
services, will abandon him. 

1 The ballot was first used in parliament in the reign of Charles II. Ety- 
mology of the word ? 

'■^ Reclamation means a representation made in opposition. Webster 
quotes these words of Lander's to illustrate the meaning. 



198 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Cromwell. Whatever his education was, thinkest thou he was 
not wise enough to know his wickedness, his usurpation and tyranny, 
when he resolved to rule without a parliament ; to levy taxes, to 
force consciences, to imprison, to slay, at his own arbitrament 
and pleasure ? Some time before the most violent of his outrages, 
had he not received a grant of money from us on conditions which 
he violated ? He then seized forcibly what belonged to the pub- 
lic ; and, because we remonstrated against this fraud and theft, 
did he not prosecute us as rebels? Whereas, when a king acts 
against the laws or without them, there can be but one rebel in 
the kingdom. Accomplices there may be ; and such we may treat 
with mildness, if they do not wring and wrest it away from us and 
turn it against us, pushing down those who raised them. When 
the leading stag of such a herd is intractably wild, and obsti- 
nately vicious to his keepers, he ought to be hamstrung and 
thrown across the paling, wherever he is overtaken. What ! 
pat his hide, forsooth ! hug his neck, garland his horns, pipe to 
him, try gentleness, try clemency ! Walter, Walter ! we laugh at 
speculators.^ 

Noble. Many indeed are ready enough to laugh at speculators, 
because many profit, or expect to profit, by established and widen- 
ing abuses. Speculations toward evil lose their name by adop- 
tion ; speculations toward good are forever speculations, and 
he who hath proposed them is a chimerical and silly creature. 
Among the matters under this denomination I never find a 
cruel project, I never find an oppressive or unjust one : how 
happens it? 

Cromwell. Proportions should exist in all things. Sovereigns 
are paid higher than others for their office ; they should therefore 
be punished more severely for abusing it, even if the consequences 
of this abuse were in nothing more grievous or extensive. We 
can not clap them in the stocks conveniently, nor whip them at 
the market-place. Where there is a crown there must be an axe : 
I would keep it there only. 

1 visionaries, theorizers 



LAN DOR 199 

Noble. Lop off the rotten, press out the poisonous, preserve 
the rest ; let it suffice to have given this memorable example of 
national power and justice. 

Cromwell. Justice is perfect ; an attribute of God : we must 
not trifle with it. 

Noble. Should we be less merciful to our fellow-creatures than 
to our domestic animals? Before we deliver them to be killed, 
we weigh their services against their inconveniences. On the 
foundation of policy, when we have no better, let us erect the 
trophies of humanity : let us consider that, educated in the same 
manner and situated in the same position, we ourselves might 
have acted as reprovably. Abolish that forever which must else 
forever generate abuses ; and attribute the faults of the man to 
the office, not the faults of the office to the man. 

Cromwell. I have no bowels ^ for hypocrisy, and I abominate 
and detest kingship. 

Noble. I abominate and detest hangmanship ; but in certain 
stages of society both are necessary. Let them go together ; we 
want neither now. 

Cromwell. Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they 
lose their direction and begin to bend : such nails are then 
thrown into the dust or into the furnace. I must do my duty; 
I must accomplish what is commanded me ; I must not be 
turned aside. I am loth to be cast into the furnace or the dust ; 
but God's will be done ! Prythee, Wat, since thou readest, as I 
see, the books of philosophers, didst thou ever hear of Digby's ^ 
remedies by sympathy? 

Noble. Yes, formerly. 

Cromwell. Well, now, I protest, I do believe there is some- 
thing in them. To cure my headache,^ I must breathe ^ a vein 
in the neck of Charles. 

^ /. e. compassion 

'^ Sir Kenelm Digby, a physicist, who at the time of this imaginary conver- 
sation was a zealous supporter of the king, but who in later years became 
the intimate friend of Cromwell. 

^ What is the meaning .'' 

* breathe (Welsh brathu, "to pierce ")= to open 



200 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

Noble. Oliver, Oliver ! others are wittiest over wine, thou 
over blood : cold-hearted, cruel man ! 

Cromwell. Why, dost thou verily think me so, Walter? Per- 
haps thou art right in the main : but He alone who fashioned me, 
and who sees things deeper than we do, knows that. 



ROSE AYLMERi 

Ah, what avails the sceptered race ! ^ 
Ah, what the form divine ! 
What every virtue, every grace ? 
Rose Aylmer, all were thine ! 

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes 
Shall weep, but never see, 
A night of memories and of sighs 
I consecrate to thee. 



THE ONE GRAY HAIR 

The wisest of the wise 
Listen to pretty Hes, 

And love to hear them told ; 
Doubt not that Solomon 
Listened to many a one : 
Some in his youth, and more when he grew old. 

I never sat among 
The choir of Wisdom's song, 
But pretty lies loved I 

1 These lines were written on hearing of the sudden and untimely death 
of Miss Ayhiier at Calcutta. 

2 The subject of this verse was of noble descent. 



LAhlDOR 201 

As much as any king, 
When youth was on the wing, 
And (must it then be told?) when youth had quite gone by. 

Alas ! and I have not 
The pleasant hour forgot, 

When one pert lady said 
" O, Landor ! I am quite 
Bewildered with affright : 
I see (sit quiet now !) a white hair on your head ! " 

Another, more benign, 
Drew out that hair of mine, 
And in her own dark hair 
Pretended she had found 
That one, and twirled it round : 
Fair as she was, she never was so fair. 



But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue 

Within, and they that luster have imbibed 

In the sun's palace-porch, where when unyoked 

His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave : 

Shake one, and it awakens ; then apply 

Its polisht lips to your attentive ear. 

And it remembers its august abodes. 

And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. 

— The Wafer-nymph to the Shepherd, in " Gebi) 



202 



CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 



WORDSWORTH 

1770-1850 

William Wordsworth, a prominent member of the Lake school of 
poets, was born in Cumberland, England, in 1770, and died in 1850. He 
was the son of an attorney, and studied at St. John's College, Cambridge. 
He spent some time in France and Germany, and in 1799 fixed his home — 
which was presided over by his sister Dorothy (his faithful "guide, philoso- 







pher, and friend," throughout his long life) — at Grasmere. Here he lived 
till 1808. In 1813 he removed to Rydal Mount, which is closely associated 
with the most notable products of his genius. He was a favorite of fortune, 
having inherited a comfortable estate, and for some years holding a lucrative 
office under government. In 1843 ^^ ^^as appointed Poet Laureate, succeed- 
ing Southey. He was married in 1803 to Mary Hutchinson, who survived 
him, dying in 1859, at the great age of eighty-eight. In his early manhood 
Wordsworth was visionary and radical, professing republicanism, and avow- 



IVORDSIVORTH 203 

ing himself an admirer of the principles which were illustrated in the French 
Revolution ; but, as often happens, age tempered his fervor, and during 
the latter half of his life he was unfaltering in his political and religious 
conservatism. 

His first book, " An Evening Walk," an epistle in verse, was published 
in 1793; his second, "Descriptive Sketches," published in the same year, 
was cordially praised by Coleridge. Between 1798 and 1814 several editions 
of his poems were issued, receiving praise and censure in nearly equal pro- 
portions. When "The Excursion" appeared, in 1814, Jeffrey said of it; 
'• Tliis will never do; it is longer, weaker, and tamer than any of Mr. Words- 
worth's other productions." On the other hand, William Hazlitt pronounced 
it almost unsurpassed " in power of intellect, lofty conception, and depth 
of feeling." On the whole, it must be said that during Wordsworth's life, 
or at least until within a few years of his death, the judgment of the critics 
on his poetry was unfavorable ; but with the great public his writings 
steadily gained popularity. One of the principal reasons for the hostility 
of the critics was, no doubt, his energetic protest, by precept and example, 
against the romantic school of poetry, which, conspicuously represented by 
Byron, was then in high favor. He endeavored to demonstrate the supe- 
riority of simplicity in thought and expression, and in the effort incurred the 
reproach of silliness. During recent years, however, a juster and more can- 
did estimate of his work has assigned him a very high rank among English 
poets of the nineteenth century. One of the most prominent characteristics of 
his poetical genius is imaginative power, in which quality so high an authority 
as Coleridge has affirmed that he was surpassed only by .Shakespeare. His 
mind was strongly philosophical, and his writings exhibit a rare union of 
philosophical and poetical elements. 

Lowell says : " Of no other poet, except Shakespeare, have so many 
phrases become household words as of Wordsworth. If Pope has made 
current more epigrams of worldly wisdom, to Wordsworth belongs the nobler 
praise of having defined for us, and given us for a daily possession, those 
faint and vague suggestions of other-world lines, of whose gentle ministry 
with our baser nature the hurry and bustle of life scarcely ever allowed us 
to be conscious. He has won for himself a secure immortality by the depth 
of intuition which makes only the best minds at their best hours worthy, 
or indeed capable, of his companionship, and by a homely sincerity of human 
sympathy which reaches the humblest heart. Our language owes him grati- 
tude for the habitual purity and abstinence of his style, and we who speak 
it, for having emboldened us to take delight in simple things, and to trust 
ourselves to our own instincts." 



204 CAT H CARTS LITERARY READER 



THE BOY AND THE OWLS 

There was a Boy ; ye knew him well, ye cliffs 

And islands of VVinander ! many a time, 

At evening, when the earliest stars began 

To move along the edges of the hills, 

Rising or setting, would he stand alone. 

Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake ; 

And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands 

Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth 

Uplifted, he, as through an instrument. 

Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls. 

That they might answer him ; and they would shout 

Across the watery vale, and shout again, 

Responsive to his call, with quivering peals, 

And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud 

Redoubled and redoubled ; concourse wild 

Of mirth and jocund din ! And, when a lengthened pause 

Of silence came and baffled his best skill, 

Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung 

Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise 

Has carried far into his heart the voice 

Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene 

Would enter unawares into his mind 

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, 

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven,^ received 

Into the bosom of the steady lake. 

This Boy was taken from his mates, and died 
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. 
Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale 
Where he was born : the grassy churchyard hangs 
Upon a slope above the village school ; 

^ uncertain heaven ; What is the meaning? 



IVORDSIVORTH 20$ 

And through that churchyard when my way has led 

On summer evenings, I beheve that there 

A long half-hour together I have stood 

Mute, — looking at the grave in which he lies ! 



RUTH 

When Ruth was left half desolate, 
Her father took another mate ; 
And Ruth, not seven years old, 
A slighted child, at her own will 
Went wandering over dale and hill. 
In thoughtless freedom bold. 

And she had made a pipe ^ of straw, 
And from that oaten pipe could draw 
All sounds of winds and floods ; 
Had built a bower upon the green. 
As if she from her birth had been 
An infant of the woods. 

Beneath her father's roof, alone 

She seemed to live ; her thoughts her own ; 

Herself her own delight ; 

Pleased with herself, nor sad, nor gay. 

And passing thus the livelong day. 

She grew to woman's height. 

There came a youth from Georgia's shore, — 

A military casque ^ he wore, 

With splendid feathers dressed ; 

He brought them from the Cherokees ; 

The feathers nodded in the breeze, 

And made a gallant crest. 

1 See Webster for the etymology oipipe zw^fife. 2 helmet 



206 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

From Indian blood you deem him sprung : 
Ah, no ! he spake the EngUsh tongue, 
And bore a soldier's name ; 
And, when America was free 
From battle and from jeopardy, 
He 'cross the ocean came. 

With hues of genius on his cheek. 
In finest tones the youth could speak. 
— While he was yet a boy, 
The moon, the glory of the sun. 
And streams that murmur as they run, 
Had been his dearest joy. 

He was a lovely youth ! I guess ^ 

The panther in the wilderness 

Was not so fair as he ; 

And, when he chose to sport and play, 

No dolphin ever was so gay 

Upon the tropic sea. 

Among the Indians he had fought ; 
And with him many tales he brought 
Of pleasure and of fear ; 
Such tales as, told to any maid 
By such a youth, in the green shade, 
Were perilous to hear.^ 

He told of girls, a happy rout ! 

Who quit their fold with dance and shout. 

Their pleasant Indian town, 



1 See Webster on the misuse of this verb ; also Lowell's remarks on the 
same subject in the Introduction to his " Biglow Papers." 

2 Compare " Othello : " — 

"... This to hear 
Would Desdemona seriously incline '" (page 22). 



IVORDSIVORTH 20/ 

To gather strawberries all day long ; 
Returning with a choral song 
When daylight is gone down. 

He spake of plants divine and strange 
That every hour their blossoms change, 
Ten thousand lovely hues ! 
With budding, fading, faded flowers, 
They stand the wonder of the bowers, 
From morn to evening dews. 

He told of the magnolia, spread 

High as a cloud, high overhead ! 

The cypress and her spire ; 

— Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam 

Cover a hundred leagues, and seem 

To set the hills on fire. 

The youth of green savannas spake, 
And many an endless, endless lake, 
With all its fairy crowds 
Of islands, that together lie 
As quietly as spots of sky 
Among the evening clouds. 

And then he said, " How sweet it were 

A fisher or a hunter there, 

A gardener in the shade, 

Still wandering with an easy mind 

To build a household fire, and find 

A home in every glade ! 

" What days and what sweet years ! Ah me ! 

Our life were life indeed, with thee 

So passed in quiet bliss. 

And all the while," said he, '^ to know 

That we were in a world of woe, 

On such an earth as this ! 



208 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

" Sweet Ruth I and could you go with me 

My helpmate in the woods to be, 

Our shed at night to rear ; 

Or run, my own adopted bride, 

A sylvan huntress at my side, 

And drive the flying deer ! 

"Beloved Ruth — " No more he said, % 

The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed 

A solitary tear : 

She thought again, — and did agree 

With him to sail across the sea. 

And drive the flying deer. 

" And now, as fitting is and right, 
We in the church our faith will plight, 
A husband and a wife." 
Even so they did ; and I may say 
That to sweet Ruth that happy day 
Was more than human life. 



THE SOLITARY REAPER 

Behold her single in the field, 
Yon solitary Highland Lass ! 
Reaping and singing by herself; 
Stop here, or gently pass ! 
Alone she cuts and binds the grain. 
And sings a melancholy strain ; 
O Hsten ! for the vale profound 
Is overflowing with the sound. 

No nightingale did ever chant 
More welcome notes to weary bands 



IVORDSIVORTH 209 

Of travelers in some shady haunt 
Among Arabian sands ; 
No sweeter voice was ever heard 
In springtime from the cuckoo-bird, 
Breaking the silence of the seas 
Among the farthest Hebrides. 

Will no one tell me what she sings? 
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 
For old, unhappy, far-off things, 
And batdes long ago : 
Or is it some more humble lay. 
Familiar matter of to-day? 
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 
That has been, and may be again. 

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang 
As if her song could have no ending ; 
I saw her singing at her work, 
And o'er the sickle bending ; 
I listened till I had my fill ; 
And as I mounted up the hill 
The music in my heart I bore 
Long after it was heard no more. 



SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT 

She was a phantom ^ of deUght 

When first she gleamed upon my sight , 

A lovely apparition, sent 

To be a moment's ornament ; 

1 Phantom is literally, " an > appearance," with a suggestion of the pre- 
ternatural. Wordsworth here uses it to signify a spirit of almost super- 
natural beauty, — a new shade of meaning; and this line is quoted by 
Webster to illustrate it. 

14 



2IO CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair ; 
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair ; 
But all things else about her drawn 
From May-time and the cheerful dawn ; 
A dancing shape, an image gay, 
To haunt, to startle, and waylay. 

I saw her upon nearer view, 

A spirit, yet a woman too ! 

Her household motions light and free, 

And steps of virgin-liberty ; 

A countenance in which did meet 

Sweet records, promises as sweet ; 

A creature not too bright or good 

P'or human nature's daily food. 

For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 

And now I see with eye serene 

The very pulse of the machine ; 

A being breathing thoughtful breath, 

A traveler between life and death : 

The reason firm, the temperate will, 

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ; 

A perfect woman, nobly planned 

To warn, to comfort, and command ; 

And yet a spirit still, and bright 

With something of an angel light. 



SCOTT 



211 



SCOTT 

T771-1832 

Sir Walter Scott, the most famous of historical novelists, was born in 
Edinburgh in 177 1, and died in 1832. He studied at the University of Edin- 
burgh, read law, and in 1792 was called to the Bar. In 1799 he was appointed 
sheriff, in 1806 was made clerk of the Court of Session, and in 1820, when 
he was forty-nine years old, received a baronetcy. His first literary effort 




-^^/Zk.,.^^^ 7^>c^ 



was a translation of some of Burger's ballads, which was published in 1796. 
Other translations followed, with three or four original poems ; but not until 
1805 did Scott attain the place of literary eminence which he afterwards held 
and adorned. His first great success was " The Lay of the Last Minstrel," 
which appeared in that year, and was received with almost universal praise. 
" Marmlon," " The Lady of the Lake," " Rokeby," and other poems were 
issued in quick succession, each confirming his poetical reputation and 
spreading his fame. But Scott is better known to the world as a novelist 



212 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

than as a poet. In 1814 " Waverley " was published at Edmburgh, and 
instantly attracted attention. No author's name appeared on the title-page, 
and the public was left in doubt as to the source of so brilliant a book. 
This was naturally increased, the next year, by the appearance of "Guy 
Mannering," and, at brief intervals, of its successors. Scott was suspected 
of the authorship of these books, but stoutly denied it ; and not till many 
years later did he admit the fact. 

In all the history of literature there is no record of such labors as his ; 
one admires with equal warmth his lofty sense of honor, his unyielding forti- 
tude, and his almost superhuman power of application, all shown under the 
burden of most grievous difficulties. The secret of Scott's success may 
be said to lie in his felicitous employment of common topics, images, and 
expressions. No writer before him had so vividly illustrated the character- 
istics of Scottish life and character. Not conspicuously surpassing all other 
novelists in single qualities, Scott yet possessed and combined all the 
qualities necessary for his work in nice and harmonious adjustment. While 
his novels fascinate us with all the charms of romance, they are also a store- 
house of information as to the life of the times they treat of 

Hutton, in his Life of Scott, thus comments on this aspect of the novel- 
ist's work : — 

" The most striking feature of Scott's romances is that, for the most part, 
they are pivoted on public rather than mere private interests and passions. 
With but few exceptions, — 'The Antiquary,' 'St. Ronan's Well,' and 
'Guy Mannering' are the most important, — Scott's novels give us an 
imaginative view, not of mere individuals, but of individuals as they are 
affected by the public strifes and social divisions of the age. And this it is 
which gives his books so large an interest for old and young, soldiers and 
statesmen, the w-orld of society and the recluse alike. You can hardly read 
any novel of Scott's and not become better aware what public life and politi- 
cal issues mean. And yet there is no artificiality, no elaborate attitudinizing 
before the antique mirrors of the past, like Bulwer's, no dressing-out of 
clothes-horses like G. P. R. James. The boldness and freshness of the 
present are carried back into the past, and you see Papists and Puritans, 
Cavaliers and Roundheads, Jews, Jacobites, and freebooters, preachers, 
schoolmasters, mercenary soldiers, gypsies, and beggars, all living the sort 
of life which the reader feels that in their circumstances, and under the 
same conditions of time and place and parentage, he might have lived 
too. Indeed, no man can read Scott without being more of a public man, 
whereas the ordinary novel tends to make its readers rather less of one 
than before." 



SCOTT 213 

SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND QUEEN ELIZABETH 1 

At this moment the gates opened, and ushers began to issue 
forth in array, preceded and flanked by the band of Gentlemen 
Pensioners.^ After this, amid a crowd of lords and ladies, yet so 
disposed around her that she could see and be seen on all sides, 
came Elizabeth herself, then in the full glow of what in a sover- 
eign was called beauty, and who would in the lowest walk of life 
have been truly judged to possess a noble figure, joined to a 
striking and commanding physiognomy. She leant on the 
arm of Lord Hunsdon, whose relation to her by her mother's 
side often procured him such distinguished marks of Elizabeth's 
friendship. 

The young cavalier we have so often mentioned ^ had probably 
never yet approached so near the person of his sovereign, and he 
pressed forward as far as the line of warders permitted, in order 
to avail himself of the present opportunity. His companion, on 
the contrary, cursing his imprudence, kept pulling him backward, 
till Walter shook him off impatiently, letting his rich cloak drop 
carelessly from one shoulder ; a natural action, which served, 
however, to display to the best advantage his well-proportioned 
person. Unbonneting * at the same time, he fixed his eager gaze 
on the queen's approach, with a mixture of respectful curiosity 
and modest yet ardent admiration, which suited so well with his 
fine features that the warders, struck with his rich attire and noble 
countenance, suffered him to approach the ground over which the 
queen was to pass, somewhat closer than was permitted to ordi- 
nary spectators. 

Thus the adventurous youth stood full in Elizabeth's eye, — 
an eye never indifferent to the admiration which she deservedly 
excited among her subjects, or to the fair proportions of exter- 
nal form which chanced to distinguish any of her courtiers. 



1 The selection is from " Kenilworth." 

2 attendants of the sovereign, who were paid from the pension fund 
•^ Raleigh, afterwards Sir Walter Raleigh 

^ doffing his hat 



2 14 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Accordingly, she fixed her keen glance upon the youth, as she 
approached the place where he stood, with a look in which sur- 
prise at his boldness seemed to be unmixed with resentment, 
while a trifling accident happened which attracted her attention 
toward him yet more strongly. The night had been rainy, and 
just where the young gentleman stood, a small quantity of mud 
mterrupted the queen's passage. As she hesitated to pass on, 
the gallant,^ throwing his cloak from his shoulders, laid it on the 
miry spot, so as to insure her passing over it dry-shod. 

Elizabeth looked at the young man, who accompanied this act 
of devoted courtesy with a profound reverence, and a blush that 
overspread his whole countenance. The queen was confused, 
blushed in her turn, nodded her head, hastily passed on, and 
embarked in her barge without saying a word. 

" Come along, Sir Coxcomb," said Blount,^ " your gay mantle 
will need the brush to-day, I wot."^ 

"This cloak," said the youth, taking it up and folding it, ''shall 
never be brushed while in my possession." 

" And that will not be long, if you learn not a little more 
economy." 

Their discourse was here interrupted by one of the band of 
Pensioners. " I was sent," said he, after looking at them atten- 
tively, "to a gentleman who hath no cloak, or a muddy one. 
You, sir, I think," addressing the younger cavalier, " are the man ; 
you will please to follow me." 

"He is in attendance on me," said Blount, — "on me, the noble 
Earl of Sussex's Master of Horse." 

" I have nothing to say to that," answered the messenger ; 
" my orders are directly from her Majesty, and concern this gen- 
tleman only." So saying, he walked away, followed by Walter, 
leaving the others behind, Blount's eyes almost starting from 
his head with the excess of his astonishment. At length he gave 
vent to it in an exclamation, — " Who in the world would have 



1 A richly-attired, courtier-like man. Derivation ? 

2 a companion of Raleigh 

3 " I wot," an obsolete form = " I know " (A.-S. wdt). 



SCOTT 215 

thought this ! " And shakmg his head with a mysterious air, he 
walked to his own boat, embarked, and returned to Deptford. 

The young cavaHer was, in the mean while, guided to the water- 
side by the Pensioner, who showed him considerable respect, — a 
circumstance which, to persons in his situation, may be considered 
as an augury ^ of no small consequence. He ushered him into 
one of the wherries which lay ready to attend the queen's barge, 
which was already proceeding up the river with the advantage 
of that flood-tide of which, in the course of their descent, Blount 
had complained to his associates. The two rowers used their oars 
with such expedition, at the signal of the Gentleman Pensioner, 
that they very soon brought their little skiffs under the stern of 
the queen's boat, where she sat beneath an awning, attended by 
two or three ladies, and the nobles of her household. She looked 
more than onc'e at the wherry in which the young adventurer was 
seated, spoke to those around her, and seemed to laugh. 

At length one of the attendants, by the queen's order appar- 
ently, made a sign for the wherry to come alongside, and the 
young man was desired to step from his own skiff into the queen's 
barge, which he performed with graceful agility at the fore part 
of the boat, and was brought aft to the queen's presence, the 
wherry at the same time dropping to the rear. The youth under- 
went the gaze of majesty not the less gracefully that his self-pos- 
session was mingled with embarrassment. The muddied cloak 
still hung upon his arm, and formed the natural topic with which 
the queen hitroduced the conversation. 

" You have this day spoiled a gay mantle in our service, young 
man. We thank you for your service, though the manner of offer- 
ing it was unusual and something^ bold." 

•' In a sovereign's need," answered the youth, " it is each Hege- 
man's duty to be bold." 

"That was well said, my lord," said the queen, turning to a 
grave person who sat by her, and answered with a grave inclina- 
tion of the head and something of a mumbled assent. '• Well, 

1 omen, favorable sign - Derivation? '^ here an adverb — j-^w^7£//^a/ 



2l6 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

young man, your gallantry shall not go unrewarded. Go to the 
wardrobe-keeper, and he shall have orders to supply ^ the suit 
which you have cast away in our service. Thou shalt have a suit, 
and that of the newest cut ; I promise you, on the word of a 
princess." 

'' May it please your Grace," said Walter, hesitating, " it is not 
for so humble a servant of your Majesty to measure out your 
bounties ; but if it became me to choose — " 

*'Thou wouldst have gold, I warrant me," said the queen, in- 
terrupting him. " Fie, young man ! I take shame to say that in 
our capital such and so various are the means of thriftless folly 
that to give gold to youth is giving fuel to fire, and furnishing 
them with the means for self-destruction. If I hve and reign, 
these means of unchristian excess shall be abridged. Yet ihou 
mayst be poor," she added, "or thy parents may be. It shall 
be gold if thou wilt, but thou shalt answer to me for the. use 
of it." 

Walter waited patiently until the queen had done, and then 
modestly assured her that gold was still less in his wish than the 
raiment her Majesty had before offered. 

" How, boy," said the queen, " neither gold nor garment ! 
What is it thou wouldst have of me, then? " 

" Only permission, madam, — if it is not asking too high an 
honor, — permission to wear the cloak which did you this trifling 
service." 

'' Permission to wear thine own cloak, thou silly boy 1 " said 
the queen. 

" It is no longer mine," said Walter. " When your Majesty's 
foot touched it, it became a fit mantle for a prince, but far too 
rich a one for its former owner." 

The queen again blushed ; and endeavored to cover, by laugh- 
ing, a slight degree of not unpleasing surprise and confusion. 

''Heard you ever the like, my lords? The youth's head is 
turned with reading romances ; I must know something of him, 

1 make good the loss of 



SCOTT 217 

that I may send him safe to his friends. What is thy name and 
birth?" 

" Raleigh is my name, most gracious queen ; the youngest son 
of a large but honorable family in Devonshire." 

"Raleigh?" said Ehzabeth, after a moment's recollection; 
"have we not heard of your service in Ireland?" 

" I have been so fortunate as to do some service there, 
madam," replied Raleigh, — "scarce, however, of consequence 
sufficient to reach your Grace's ears." 

" They hear further than you think for," said the queen, gra- 
ciously, " and have heard of a youth who defended a ford in 
Shannon against a whole band of rebels until the stream ran 
purple with their blood and his own." 

" Some blood I may have lost," said the youth, looking down; 
" but it was where my best is due, and that is in your Majesty's 
service." 

The queen paused, and then said hastily, " You are very young 
to have fought so well and to speak so well. But you must not 
escape your penance for turning back Masters, — the poor man 
hath caught cold on the river ; for our order reached him when 
he had just returned from certain visits to London, and he held 
it a matter of loyalty and conscience instantly to set forth again. 
So hark ye. Master Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy 
cloak, in token of penitence, till our pleasure be further known. 
And here," she added, giving him a jewel of gold in the form of 
a chessman, " I give thee this to wear at the collar." 

Raleigh, to whom nature had taught intuitively, as it were, those 
courtly arts which many scarce acquire from long experience, 
knelt, and as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers 
which gave it. 



2l8 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

LOCHINVAR — LADY HERON'S SONQi 

O, YOUNG Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best, 
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none ; 
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war. 
There never was knight Uke the young Lochinvar. 

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, 

He swam the Eske River where ford there was none ; 

But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate, 

The bride had consented ; the gallant came late : 

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war. 

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall. 

Among bridesmen and kinsmen, and brothers and all : 

Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword 

(For the poor craven bridegroom spoke never a word), 

" O, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war. 

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?" 

" I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied ; — 
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide, — 
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine, 
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, 
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.'" 

The bride kissed the goblet ; the knight took it up, 
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. 
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh. 
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. 

^ from " Marmion " 



SCOTT 219 

He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, — 
" Now tread we a measure ! " said young Lochmvar. 

So stately his form, and so lovely her face. 

That never a hall such a galliard ^ did grace ; 

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, 

And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume ; 

And the bride -maidens whispered, " 'T were better by far 

To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." 

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 

When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near ; 

So light to the croupe "^ the fair lady he swung, 

So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! 

" She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur ; ^ 

They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar. 

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan ; 

Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran : 

There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, 

But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, 

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? 



THE LAST MINSTREL 

The way was long, the wind was cold, 
The Minstrel was infirm and old : 
His withered cheek, and tresses gray. 
Seemed to have known a better day ; 
The harp, his sole remaining joy. 
Was carried by an orphan boy : 



a lively dance - crupper, place back of the saddle ^ rocky steep 



220 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

The last of all the Bards was he, 

Who sung of Border chivalry ; 

For, well-a-day ! their date was fled, 

His tuneful brethren all were dead ; 

And he, neglected and oppressed, 

Wished to be with them, and at rest. 

No more, on prancing palfrey^ borne, 

He caroled, light as lark at morn ; 

No longer, courted and caressed, 

High placed in hall, a welcome guest, 

He poured, to lord and lady gay. 

The unpremeditated lay : 

Old times were changed, old manners gone 

A stranger fills the Stuarts' throne ; 

The bigots of the iron time ^ 

Had called his harmless art a crime. 

A wandering harper, scorned and poor, 

He begged his way from door to door ; 

And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, 

The harp a king had loved to hear. 



LOVE OF COUNTRY 

Breathes there the man with soul so dead. 
Who never to himself hath said, 

" This is my own, my native land? " 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned 
As home his footsteps he hath turned, 

From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well • 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ! 



1 a saddle-horse ^ i- e. the Puritans of the Commonwealth 



SCOTT 221 

High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim : 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentered all in self. 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown. 
And doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. 



A SERENADE 



Ah ! County Guy, the hour is nigh, 

The sun has left the lea, 
The orange-flower perfumes the bower. 

The breeze is on the sea. 
The lark, his lay who trilled all day. 

Sits hushed his partner nigh ; 
Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour, - 

But where is County Guy? 

The village maid steals through the shade 

Her shepherd's suit to hear ; 
To Beauty shy, by lattice high, 

Sings high-born Cavalier. 
The star of love, all stars above. 

Now reigns o'er earth and sky, 
And high and low the influence know, — 

But where is County Guy? 



222 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



SYDNEY SMITH 



1771-1845 



Sydney Smith's name is a synonym of wit ; but he has left behind him 
evidences of far higher powers than those which are called into exercise in 
the effort to amuse. He was born at Woodford, Essex, England, in 1771, 
and died in 1845. He was educated at Oxford, took holy orders, and held a 




curacy in Wiltshire ; in 1796 he retnoved to Edinburgh, where, in conjunction 
with Brougham and other distinguished men, he founded the Edinburgh 
Review. Removing to London in 1804, he continued to write for the 
Review, and speedily won a brilliant reputation as a critic. Ecclesiastical 
preferment came often to him, and at the time of his death he was Canon 
Residentiary of St. Paul's Cathedral. His writings were mainly in the form 



SYDNEY SMITH 223 

of sermons ; but he wrote many notable letters on political and religious 
questions which go far toward justifying Everett's opinion that if Smith " had 
not been known as the wittiest man of his day, he would have been accounted 
one of the wisest." It is believed that his Letters on Catholic Eman- 
cipation w^ere largely instrumental in pushing that measure to success. 
Macaulay said of him : " He is universally admitted to have been a great 
reasoner, and the greatest master of ridicule that has appeared among us 
since Swift." 

The distinguished critic, George Saintsbury, makes in a recent article the 
following estimate of Sydney Smith's work : " The memorials and evidences 
of his peculiar, if not unique, genius consist of three different kinds : reported 
or remembered conversations, letters, and formal literary work. He was 
once most famous as a talker ; but conversation is necessarily the most per- 
ishable of all things, and its recorded fragments bear keeping less than any 
other relics. . . . The best letters are always most like the actual conversa- 
tion of their writers, and probably no one ever wrote more as he talked than 
Sydney Smith. The specially literary qualities of his writing for print are 
here too in great measure ; and on the whole, nowhere can the entire Sydney 
be better seen. Of the three satirists of modern times with whom he may 
not unfairly claim to rank — Pascal, Swift, and Voltaire — he is most like 
Voltaire in his faculty of presenting a good thing with a preface which does 
not in the least prepare you for it, and then leaving it without the slightest 
attempt to go back on it, and elaborate it, and make sure that his hearer has 
duly appreciated it and laughed at it. And of the two, though the palm of 
concentration must be given to Voltaire, the palm of absolute simplicity musi 
be given to Sydney Smith. Hardly any of his letters are without these un- 
forced flashes of wit. . . . 

" Sydney Smith had no false modesty, and in not a few letters to Jeffrey 
he speaks of his own contributions to the Edinburgh Review with the greatest 
freedom, combating and quite refusing to accept his editor's suggestion as 
to their flippancy and fantasticality, professing with much frankness that 
this is the way he can write and no other, and more than once telling Jeffrey 
that whatever they may think in solemn Scotland, his, Sydney's, articles are 
a great deal more read in England and elsewhere than any others. Although 
there are maxims to the contrary effect, the judgment of a clever man, not 
very young, and tolerably familiar with the world, on his own work, is very 
seldom far wrong. Sydney Smith's articles are by far the most interesting 
of those contributed to the Review by any one before the days of Macaulay. 
They are also by far the most distinct and original. . . . Here was a man 
who, for goodness as well as for cleverness, for sound practical wisdom 
as well as for fantastic verbal wit, has had hardly a superior and very few 
equals." 



224 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



THE PLEASURES OF KNOWLEDGE 

It is noble to seek truth, and it is beautiful to find it. It is 
the ancient feeling of the human heart, that knowledge is better 
than riches; and it is deeply and sacredly true. To mark the 
course of human passions as they have flowed on in the ages that 
are past ; to see why nations have risen, and why they have 
fallen ; to speak of heat, and light, and the winds ; to know 
what man has discovered in the heavens above and in the earth 
beneath ; to hear the chemist unfold the marvelous properties 
that the Creator has locked up in a speck of earth; to be told 
that there are worlds so distant from our own that the quickness 
of light, traveling from the world's creation, has never yet reached 
us ; to wander in the creations of poetry, and grow warm again 
with that eloquence which swayed the democracies of the old 
world ; ^ to go up with great reasoners to the First Cause of all, 
and to perceive, in the midst of all this dissolution and decay 
and cruel separation, that there is one thing unchangeable, in- 
destructible, and everlasting ; — it is worth while in the days of 
our youth to strive hard for this great discipline ; to pass sleep- 
less nights for it ; to give up for it laborious days ; to spurn for 
it present pleasures ; '^ to endure for it afflicting poverty ; to wade 
for it through darkness, and sorrow, and contempt, as the great 
spirits of the world have done in all ages and all times. 

1 appeal to the experience of any man who is in the habit of 
exercising his mind vigorously and well, whether there is not a 
satisfaction in it which tells him he has been acting up to one 
of the great objects of his existence? The end of nature has 
been answered ; his faculties have done that which they were 
created to do, — not languidly occupied upon trifles, not ener- 
vated by sensual gratification, but exercised in that toil which is 
so congenial to their nature, and so worthy of their strength. 

^ /. e. the ancient world 

2 Compare Milton, p. 68 " To scorn delights, and live laborious days." 



SYDNEY SMITH 225 

A life of knowledge is not often a life of injury and crime. 
Whom does such a man oppress ? with whose happiness does he 
interfere? whom does his ambition destroy? and whom does his 
fraud deceive? In the pursuit of science he injures no man, and 
in the acquisition he does good to all. A man who dedicates his 
life to knowledge, becomes habituated to pleasure which carries 
with it no reproach ; and there is one security that he will never 
love that pleasure which is paid for by anguish of heart, — his 
pleasures are all cheap, all dignified, and all innocent ; and, as far 
as any human being can expect permanence in this changing 
scene, he has secured a happiness which no malignity of for- 
tune can ever take away, but which must cleave to him while he 
lives, ameliorating every good, and diminishing every evil of 
his existence. 

I solemnly declare, that, but for the love of knowledge, I should 
consider the life of the meanest hedger and ditcher preferable to 
that of the greatest and richest man in existence ; for the fire of 
our minds is like the fire which the Persians burn on the moun- 
tains, — it flames night and day, and is immortal, and not to be 
quenched ! Upon something it must act and feed, — upon the 
pure spirit of knowledge, or upon the foul dregs of polluting 
passions. 

Therefore, when I say, in conducting your understanding, love 
knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love 
coeval with^ life, what do I say but love innocence ; love virtue ; 
love purity of conduct ; love that which, if you are rich and great, 
will sanctify the providence which has made you so, and make 
men call it justice ; love that which, if you are poor, will ren- 
der your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel it 
unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes ; love that which 
will comfort you, adorn you, and never quit you, — which will 
open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions 
of conception, as an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and 
the pain that may be your lot in the outer world, — that which 



1 coeval with, " of the same age as ; " /. e. as long as 
IS 



226 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

will make your motives habitually great and honorable, and light 
up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of 
meanness and of fraud ? 

Therefore, if any young man have embarked his life in the pur- 
suit of knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the 
event : let him not be intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of 
knowledge, by the darkness from which she springs, by the diffi- 
culties which hover around her, by the wretched habitations in 
which she dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes jour- 
ney in her train ; but let him ever follow her as the angel that 
guards him, and as the genius ^ of his life. She will bring him 
out at last into the light of day, and exhibit him to the world 
comprehensive in acquirements, fertile in resources, rich in imagi- 
nation, strong in reasoning, prudent and powerful above his fel- 
lows in all the relations and in all the offices of life. 



WIT AND WISDOM 

There is an association in men's minds between dullness and 
wisdom, amusement and folly, which has a very powerful influence 
in decision upon character, and is not overcome without consider- 
able difficulty. The reason is, that the outward signs of a dull man 
and a wise man are the same, and so are the outward signs of a 
frivolous man and a witty man ; and we are not to expect that 
the majority will be disposed to look to much more than the out- 
ward sign. I beheve the fact to be, that wit is very seldom the 
only eminent quality which resides in the mind of any man ; it is 
commonly accompanied by many other talents of every descrip- 
tion, and ought to be considered as a strong evidence of a fertile 
and superior understanding. Almost all the great poets, orators, 
and statesmen of all times have been witty. 

1 good spirit 



SYDNEY SMITH 22/ 

The meaning of an extraordinary man is, that he is eight men, 
not one man ; that he has as much wit as if he had no sense, and 
as much sense as if he had no wit ; that his conduct is as judi- 
cious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagina- 
tion as briUiant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But when wit 
is combined with sense and information ; when it is softened by 
benevolence, and restrained by strong principle ; when it is in 
the hands of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be 
witty, and something much better than witty, who loves honor, 
justice, decency, good-nature, morality, and religion, ten thousand 
times better than wit ; — wit is then a beautiful and delightful 
part of our nature. There is no more interesting spectacle than 
to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of men ; 
than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing dignity, unfreezing 
coldness, — teaching age and care and pain to smile, — extorting 
reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charming even 
the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates 
through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bring- 
ing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine 
and oil, giving every man a glad heart and a shining countenance. 
Genuine and innocent wit like this is surely the flavor of the mind! 
Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life 
by tasteless food ; but God has given us wit and flavor, and 
laughter and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, 
and to " charm his painful steps over the burning marl." 



THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT 

It would seem that the science of government is an unap- 
propriated region in the universe of knowledge. Those sciences 
with which the passions can never interfere are considered to be 
attainable only by study and by reflection ; while there are not 
many young men who doubt of their ability to make a constitu- 
tion or to govern a kingdom, at the same time there can not, 



228 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

perhaps, be a more decided proof of a superficial understanding 
than the depreciation of those difficulties which are inseparable 
from the science of government. To know well the local and 
the natural man ; to track the silent march of human affairs ; to 
seize, with happy intuition, on those great laws which regulate the 
prosperity of empires ; to reconcile principles to circumstances, 
and be no wiser than the times will permit; to anticipate the 
effects of every speculation ^ upon the entangled relations and 
awkward complexity of real life ; and to follow out the theorems ^ 
of the senate to the daily comforts of the cottage, is a task 
which they will fear most who know it best, — a task in which 
the great and the good have often failed, and which it is not only 
wise, but pious and just, in common men to avoid. 



Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in 
their time. What Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived 
in the days of Grattan? Who has not turned to him for comfort, 
from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland? No gov- 
ernment ever dismayed him, the world could not bribe him, he 
thought only of Ireland, lived for no other object, dedicated to 
her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all 
the splendor of his astonishing eloquence. He was so born and 
so gifted that poetry, forensic skill, elegant literature, and all the 
highest attainments of human genius were within his reach ; but 
he thought the noblest occupation of a man was to make other 
men happy and free ; and in that straight line he went on for 
fifty years, without one side -look, without one yielding thought, 
without one motive in his heart which he might not have laid 
open to the view of God and man. 

From the '^ Ediubm-gh Eevieiv,'' 1820. 

1 Meaning } ^ established principles 



COLERIDGE 



229 



COLERIDGE 

1 772-1834 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, 
where his father was vicar, in 1772, and died in 1834. He spent two years 
at Cambridge, but did not complete his course. A little later, being in 
London without resources or employment, he enlisted in a dragoon regiment. 
One day he wrote a Latin verse on the stable- wall, which fact coming to 







j/\ P, Ccr^ C. '^ 



'4-^ 



the knowledge of his captain, the latter procured his release from the ser- 
vice. Entering on a literary and political career, Coleridge published his 
first work, "The Fall of Robespierre: An Historical Drama," in 1794, and 
soon after several pamphlets, in which he advocated democratic and Uni- 
tarian doctrines. With vSouthey and Lovell he projected a Pantisocracy, or 
communistic republic, to be established in Pennsylvania ; but the scheme 
came to naught, and Coleridge settled down as a writer on the Morning 
Post, in support of the Government. In 1798 he visited Germany, and 
studied there diligently. In 181 2 his series of Essays called "The Friend" 



230 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

was published, and in 1816 " Christabel." He had acquired the habit of 
opium-eating, which obtained the mastery over him and reduced him to a 
condition of unproductive indolence. He passed the last eighteen years 
of his life in retirement. So able a judge as De Quincey has said that 
Coleridge's was "the largest and most spacious intellect, the subtlest and 
most comprehensive, that has yet existed among men." 

"Of Coleridge's poetry, in its most matured form and in its best speci- 
mens, the most distinguishing characteristics are vividness of imagination 
and subtlety of thought, combined with unrivalled beauty and expressive- 
ness of diction, and the most exquisite melody of verse. With the ex 
ception of a vein of melancholy and meditative tenderness, flowing rather 
from a contemplative survey of the mystery, — the strangely mingled good 
and evil, — of all things human, than connected with any individual interests, 
there is not in general much of passion in his compositions, and he is not 
well fitted, therefore, to become a very popular poet, or a favorite with the 
multitude. There is nothing in his poetry of the pulse of fire that throbs 
in that of Burns ; neither has he much of the homely every-day truth, the 
proverbial and universally applicable wisdom of Wordsworth. Coleridge 
was, far more than either of these poets, 'of imagination all compact.' 
But rarely, on the other hand, has there existed an imagination in which so 
much originality and daring were associated and harmonized with so gentle 
and tremblingly delicate a sense of beauty." — G. L. Craik. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF METHOD 

What is that which first strikes us, and strikes us at once, in a 
man of education, and which, among educated men, so instantly 
distinguishes the man of superior mind, that (as was observed 
with eminent propriety of the late Edmund Burke) " we cannot 
stand under the same archway during a shower of rain, without 
finding him out"? Not the weight or novelty of his remarks; 
not any unusual interest of facts communicated by him : for we 
may suppose both the one and the other precluded by the short- 
ness of our intercourse, and the triviality of the subjects. The 
difference will be impressed and felt, though the conversation 
should be confined to the state of the weather or the pavement. 
Still less will it arise from any peculiarity in his words and 
phrases. Unless where new things necessitate new terms, he 
will avoid an unusual word as a rock. It must have been among 



COLERIDGE 231 

the earliest lessons of his youth, that the breach of this precept, 
at all times hazardous, becomes ridiculous in the topics of ordi- 
nary conversation. There remains but one other point of dis- 
tinction possible ; and this must be, and in fact is, the true cause 
of the impression made on us. It is the unpremeditated and 
evidently habitual arrangement of his words, grounded on the 
habit of foreseeing, in each integral part, or (more plainly) in 
every sentence, the whole that he then intends to communicate. 
However irregular and desultory ^ his talk, there is method in the 
fragments. 

Listen, on the other hand, to an ignorant man, though perhaps 
shrewd and able in his particular calling, whether he be describ- 
ing or relating."^ We immediately perceive that his memory 
alone is called into action, and that the objects and events recur 
in the narration in the same order, and with the same accom- 
paniments, however accidental or impertinent,^ in which they had 
first occurred to the narrator. The necessity of taking breath, 
the efforts of recollection, and the abrupt rectification of its 
failures, produce all his pauses ; and with exception of the '' and 
then," the '' and there," and the still less significant " and so," 
they constitute likewise all his connections. 

Our discussion, however, is confined to method as employed 
in the formation of the understanding, and in the constructions 
of science and literature. It would indeed be superfluous to 
attempt a proof of its importance in the business and economy 
of active or domestic life. From the cotter's hearth or the work- 
shop of the artisan to the palace or the arsenal, the first merit, 
that which admits neither substitute nor equivalent, is, that every- 
thing be in its place. Where this charm is wanting, every other 
merit either loses its name, or becomes an additional ground of 
accusation and regret. Of one, by whom it is eminently pos- 
sessed, we say proverbially, he is like clock-work. The resem- 
blance extends beyond the point of regularity, and yet fells short 

1 Derivation ? 

2 Note the distinction between description and narration. 

3 used here in the literal sense 



232 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

of the truth. Both do, indeed, at once divide and announce the 
silent and otherwise indistinguishable lapse of time. But the man 
of methodical industry and honorable pursuits does more ; he 
realizes its ideal divisions, and gives a character and individuality 
to its moments. If the idle are described as killing time, he may 
be justly said to call it into life and moral being, while he makes 
it the distinct object, not only of the consciousness, but of the 
conscience. He organizes the hours, and gives them a soul ; 
and that, the very essence of which is to fleet away, and ever- 
more to have been, he takes up into his own permanence, and 
communicates to it the imperishableness of a spiritual nature. 
Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies, thus directed, 
are thus methodized, it is less truly affirmed that he lives in time, 
than that time lives in him. His days, months, and years, as the 
stops and punctual marks ^ in the records of duties performed, 
will survive the wreck of worlds,^ and remain extant w^hen time 
itself shall be no more. 

But as the importance of method in the duties of social life is 
incomparably greater, so are its practical elements proportionably 
obvious, and such as relate to the will far more than to the under- 
standing. Henceforward, therefore, we contemplate its bearings 
on the latter. 

The difference between the products of a well-disciplined and 
those of an uncultivated understanding, in relation to what we 
will now venture to call the science of method, is often and 
admirably exhibited by our great dramatist. I scarcely need 
refer my readers to the Clown's evidence, in the first scene of 
the second act of " Measure for Measure," or to the Nurse in 
" Romeo and Juliet." . . . 

The absence of method, w^hich characterizes the uneducated, 
is occasioned by an habitual submission of the understanding to 

1 punctual marks; i. e. points of demarcation 

^ survive the wreck of worlds — Compare the lines of Addison's " Cato : " 

" But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds," 



COLERIDGE 233 

mere events and images as such, and independent of any power 
in the mind to classify or appropriate them. The general accom- 
paniments of time and place are the only relations which persons 
of this class appear to regard in their statements. As this con- 
stitutes their leading feature, the contrary excellence, as distin- 
guishing the well-educated man, must be referred to the contrary 
habit. Method, therefore, becomes natural to the mind which 
has been accustomed to contemplate, not things only, or for their 
own sake alone, but likewise and chiefly the relations of things, 
either their relations to each other, or to the observer, or to the 
state and apprehensions of the hearers. To enumerate and 
analyze these relations, with the conditions under which alone 
they are discoverable, is to teach the science of method. . . . 

Exuberance of mind, on the one hand, interferes with the forms 
of method ; but sterility of mind, on the other, wanting the spring 
and impulse to mental action, is wholly destructive of method 
itself. For in attending too exclusively to the relations which the 
past or passing events and objects bear to general truth, and the 
moods of his own thought, the most intelligent man is sometimes 
in danger of overlooking that other relation, in which they are 
likewise to be placed to the apprehension and sympathies of his 
hearers. His discourse appears like soliloquy intermixed with 
dialogue. 

But the uneducated and unreflecting talker overlooks all men- 
tal relations, both logical and psychological ; and consequently 
precludes all method which is not purely accidental. Hence 
the nearer the things and incidents in time and place, the more 
distant, disjointed, and impertinent to each other, and to any 
common purpose, will they appear in his narration ; and this 
from the want of a staple, or starting-post, in the narrator him- 
self; from the absence of the leadmg thought, which, borrowing 
a phrase from the nomenclature of legislation, I may not inaptly 
call the initiative. On the contrary, where the habit of method 
is present and effective, things the most remote and diverse in time, 
place, and outward circumstance are brought into mental con- 
tiguity and succession, the more striking as the less expected. 



234 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

KUBLA KHAN; OR, A VISION IN A DREAM i 

A FRAGMENT 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree : 

Where Alph,^ the sacred river, ran 

Through caverns measureless to man 
Down to a sunless sea. 
So twice five miles of fertile ground 
With walls and towers were girdled round : 
And there were gardens bright with sinuous ^ rills 
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ; 
And here were forests ancient as the hills, 
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 

1 Coleridge makes the following reference to this poem : " In consequence 
of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed for the author, from 
the effect of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment he was reading 
the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's ' Pil- 
grimage ': ' Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a 
stately garden thereunto : and thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed 
with a wall.' The author continued for about three hours in a profound 
sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most 
vivid confidence that he could not have composed less than from two to three 
hundred lines, — if that indeed can be called composition in which all the 
images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the corre- 
spondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On 
awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, 
and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines 
that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out 
and detained above an hour, and on his return to his room, found to his no 
small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague 
and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the excep- 
tion of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed 
away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been 
cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter." The fragment 
is generally ranked among the finest specimens of purely imaginative poetry 
in our language. 

^ Alpheus, the underground river of ancient mythology, frequently referred 
to by the poets. (See Milton, p. 70.) 

'^ Etymology ? 



COLERIDGE 235 

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! 

A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 

By woman waihng for her demon-lover ! 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forced ; 

Amid whose swift half- intermitted burst 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail : 

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 

Through w^ood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean ; 

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophesying war ! 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

Floated midway on the w^aves ; 

Where was heard the mingled measure 

From the fountain and the caves. 
It was a miracle of rare device, — 
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! 

A damsel with a dulcimer ^ 

In a vision once I saw : 

It was an Abyssinian maid. 

And on her dulcimer she played. 

Singing of Mount Abora. 

1 Note the frequent use of alliteration, as in 

" Her symphony and song," 

" His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! " 
The dulcimer is a stringed instrument. The word is of mixed etymology, 
from Latin dulcis, "sweet," and Greek melos, "melody." 



236 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Could I revive within me 
Her symphony and song, 
To such a deep deUght t' would win me 
That, with music loud and long, 
I would build that dome in air, 
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! 
And all who heard should see them there, 
And all should cry. Beware ! Beware ! 
His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 
Weave a circle round him thrice. 
And close your eyes with holy dread. 
For he on honey- dew hath fed. 
And drunk the milk of Paradise. 



DEAD CALM IN THE TROPICS 1 

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 

The furrow followed free ; 

We were the first that ever burst 

Into that silent sea. 

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 
'T was sad as sad could be ; 
And we did speak only to break 
The silence of the sea ! 

All in a hot and copper sky, 
The bloody Sun, at noon. 
Right up above the mast did stand, 
No bigger than the Moon. 

Day after day, day after day, 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

1 from " The Ancient Mariner " 



COLERIDGE 237 

Water, water, everywhere, 
And all the boards did shrink ; 
Water, water, everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink. 

The very deep did rot : O Christ ! 
That ever this should be ! 
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy sea. 



SEVERED FRIENDSHIP 

Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth ; 
And constancy lives in realms above ; 
And life is thorny ; and youth is vain ; 
And to be wroth with one we love 
Doth work like madness in the brain. 
And thus it chanced, as I divine, 
With Roland and Sir Leoline. 
Each spake words of high disdain 
And insult to his heart's best brother : 
They parted — ne'er to meet again ! 
But never either found another 
To free the hollow heart from paining, — 
They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ; 
A dreary sea now flows between ; — 
But neither heat nor frost nor thunder 
Shall wholly do away, I ween,^ 
The marks of that which once hath been. 



^ A.-S. winan, " to think, to imagine 



238 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 



YOUTH AND AGE 

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, 
Where Hope clung feeding — like a bee — 
Both were mine ! Life went a- Maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 
When I was young ! 
When I was young ? — Ah woful When ! 
Ah ! for the change 'twixt Now and Then ! 
This breathing house not built with hands, 
This body that does me grievous wrong, 
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands 
How lightly then it flashed along : 
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, 
On winding lakes and rivers wide. 
That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
That fear no spite of wind or tide ! 
Naught cared this body for wind or weather 
When Youth and I lived in 't together. 

Flowers are lovely ; Love is flower-like ; 
Friendship is a sheltering tree ; 
O, the joys that came down shower-like, 
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 

Ere I was old ! 
Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, 
Which tells me. Youth 's no longer here ! 
O, Youth ! for years so many and sweet 
'T is known that Thou and I were one, 
I '11 think it but a fond conceit — 
It can not be, that Thou art gone ! 
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled : — 
And thou wert aye a masker bold ! 
What strange disguise hast now put on 
To make believe that thou art gone? 



COLERIDGE 239 

I see these locks in silvery slips, 
This drooping gait, this altered size : 
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips, 
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes ! 
Life is but thought : so think I will 
That Youth and I are housemates still. 



Dewdrops are the gems of morning. 
But the tears of mournful eve ! 
Where no hope is, life 's a warning 
That only serves to make us grieve 

When we are old : 
— That only serves to make us grieve 
With oft and tedious taking-leave. 
Like some poor nigh-related guest 
That may not rudely be dismissed, 
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while, 
And tells the jest without the smile. 



THE GOOD GREAT MAN 

" How seldom, friend, a good great man inherits 

Honor and wealth, with all his worth and pains I 
It seems a story from the world of spirits 
When any man obtains that which he merits, 

Or any merits that which he obtains." 
For shame, my friend ! renounce this idle strain ! 
What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain? 
Wealth, title, dignity, a golden chain? 
Or heap of corses which his sword hath slain ? 
Goodness and greatness are not means, but ends. 
Hath he not always treasures, always friends. 
The good great man? Three treasures — love, and light, 

And calm thoughts, equable as infant's breath ; 
And three fast friends, more sure than day or night — 

Himself, his ^^laker, and the angel Death. 



240 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



LAMB 

1775-1835 

Charles Lamb, essayist and humorist, was born in London, 1775, and 
died in 1835. His literary fame rests in the main upon his "Essays of Elia." 
The delicate grace and flavor of these papers can not be described. His 
style has the charm which comes from perfect ease and self-possession, and 





^^z^^^n ^ m. -N 



his humor is of the ripest and richest kind. In all his writings there is great 
delicacy of feeling and happiness of expression. No other writer, save per- 
haps Goldsmith, enters so closely into his readers' hearts, and so warms 
them with his genial personality. 

De Quincey says : " In the literature of every nation we are naturally 
disposed to place in the highest rank those who have produced some great 



LAMB 241 

and colossal work, — a 'Paradise Lost,' a ' Hamlet,' a 'Novum Organum,' 
— which presupposes an effort of intellect, a comprehensive grasp, and a 
sustaining power, for its original conception, corresponding in grandeur to 
that effort, different in kind, which must preside in its execution. But after 
this highest class, in which the power to conceive and the power to execute 
are upon the same scale of grandeur, there comes a second, in which brilliant 
powers of execution, applied to conceptions of a very inferior range, are 
allowed to establish a classical rank. Every literature possesses, besides 
its great national gallery, a cabinet of minor pieces, not less perfect in their 
polish, possibly more so. . . . Lamb I hold to be, as with respect to English 
literature, that \Vhich La Fontaine is with respect to French. For though 
there may be little resemblance otherwise, in this they agree, that both were 
wayward and eccentric humorists; both confined their efforts to short flights; 
and both, according to the standards of their several countries, were occa- 
sionally, and in a lower key, poets." 



THE ORIGIN OF ROAST-PIG 

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, — w^iich my friend was 
obliging enough to read and explain to me, — for the first seventy 
thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the 
living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This 
period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the 
second chapter of his '' Mundane Mutations,"" where he desig- 
nates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fajig, literally the 
Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of 
roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) , 
was accidentally discovered in the manner following. 

The swineherd Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one 
morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his 
cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo -bo, a great lubberly boy, 
who, being fond of playing with fire, as youngsters of his age 
commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw,, 
which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part 
of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together 
with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian 1 make-shift of a building, 

1 Etymology ? 
16 



242 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine 
litter of new-tarrowed ^ pigs, no less than nine in number, per- 
ished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the 
East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in 
the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the 
sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build 
up again with a few dry branches and the labor of an hour or 
two at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. 

While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and 
wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those 
untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent 
which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? 
Not from the burnt cottage, — he had smelt that smell before ; 
indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which 
had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire- 
brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, 
or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time over- 
flowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next 
stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. 
He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his 
booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched 
skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his 
life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known 
it) he tasted — crackling /^ Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. 
It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from 
a sort of habit. 

The truth at length broke into his slow understanding that it 
was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious ; 
and surrendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to 
tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin wnth the flesh 
next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly 
fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed 
with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to 
rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail- 

1 new-born ^ cracJding, the crisp rind of roasted pork 



LAMB 243 

stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been 
flies. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from 
his pig till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a 
little .more sensible of his situation, something like the following 
dialogue ensued : — 

''You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is 
it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with 
your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you ! but you must be eat- 
ing fire, and I know not what? What have you got there, I 
say?" 

" O father, the pig, the pig ! do come and taste how nice the 
burnt pig eats." 

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and 
he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat 
burnt pig. Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since 
morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asun- 
der, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, 
still shouting out, " Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father ; only taste ! 
— O Lord ! " — with such-like barbarous ejaculations, cramming 
all the while as if he would choke. 

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable 
thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an 
unnatural monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it 
had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he 
in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour 
mouths he would for pretense, proved not altogether displeas- 
ing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little 
tedious), both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and 
never left off till they had dispatched all that remained of the 
litter. 

Bo- bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the 
neighbors would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abom- 
inable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good 
meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories 
got about. It was observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down 
more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time for- 



244 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

ward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night- 
time ; and Ho-ti himself, which was more remarkable, instead of 
chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than 
ever. At length they were watched, the terrible mystery dis- 
covered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at 
Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was given, 
the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to 
be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some 
of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be 
handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it ; 
and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before 
them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, 
against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which 
judge had ever given, — to the surprise of the whole court, 
townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present, — without leaving 
the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in 
a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. 

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest 
iniquity of the decision ; and when the court was dismissed, went 
privately, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love 
or money. In a few days his Lordship's town house was observed 
to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing 
to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs gr&\Y enor- 
mously dear all over the district. The insurance-offices one and 
all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, 
until it was feared that the very science of architecture would 
in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing 
houses continued till, in process of time, says my manuscript, a 
sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery that the flesh 
of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked {l)iinit, 
as they called it), without the necessity of consuming a whole 
house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. 
Roasting by the string or spit came in a century or two later, — 
I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the 
manuscript, do the most useful and seemingly the most obvious 
arts make their way among mankind. 



LAMB 245 

Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, 
it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an 
experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) 
could be assigned in favor of any culinary object, that pretext and 
excuse might be found in roast pig. 

Of all the delicacies in the whole niiindus edibilis^ I will main- 
tain it to be the most delicate. 



In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to 
compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry, — a certain 
obsequiousness or deferential respect which we are supposed to 
pay to females as females. 

I shall be disposed to admit this when, in polite circles, I shall 
see the same attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely features 
as to handsome, to coarse complexions as to clear ; to the woman 
as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. I 
shall begin to believe that there is some such principle influ- 
encing our conduct when more than one- half of the drudgery 
and coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed 
by women. 

I shall believe it to be influential when I can shut my eyes to 
the fact that in England women are still occasionally — hanged. 
I shall believe in it when actresses are no longer subject to be 
hissed off a stage by gendemen. I shall believe in it when 
Dorimant - hands a fishwife across the kennel,^ or assists the 
apple-woman to pick up her wandering fruit, which some unlucky 
dray has just dissipated. 

Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted point 
to be anything more than a conventional fiction, — a pageant got 
up between the sexes, in a certain rank and at a certain time of 
life, in which both find their account equally. 



1 Lat. " world of what is edible." 

2 the leading character in an old play entitled " The Man of Mode 
^ canal, gutter 



246 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES 

I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, 
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days ; 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. 

I have been laughing, I have been carousing, 
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies ; 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. 

I loved a love once, fairest among women : 
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her, — 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. 

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man : 
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly, — 
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces; 

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood, 
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, 
Seeking to find the old familiar faces. 

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, 
Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling? 
So might we talk of the old familiar faces, 

How some they have died, and some they have left me, 
And some are taken from me ; all are departed : 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. 



IVEBSTER 



247 



WEBSTER 



1 782-1 852 



Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, in 1782, and 
died seventy years later at Marshfield, in Massachusetts. As an orator and 
statesman he is chiefly known; but his writings, fragmentary though they 
are, deservedly rank among the best specimens of our literature. Evarts 




C2i .C^^- y^^^t^J^ 



has said of him: "In the sphere of literature Webster has a clear title to be 
held as one of the greatest authors and writers of our mother tongue that 
America has produced. I propose to the most competent critics of the na- 
tion that they can find nowhere six octavo volumes of printed literary pro- 
duction of an American that contain as much noble and as much beautiful 
imagery, as much warmth of rhetoric and of magnetic impression upon the 



248 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

reader, as are to be found in the collected writings and speeches of Daniel 
Webster." 

Of Webster's oratory, Choate tells us : " Addressing masses by tens of 
thousands, in the open air, on the urgent political questions of the day ; or 
designated to lead the meditations of an hour devoted to the remembrance 
of some national era, or of some incident marking the progress of the nation, 
and lifting him up to a view of what is, and what is past, and some indistinct 
revelations of the glory that lies in the future, or of some great historical 
name, just borne by the nation to his tomb, — in such scenes, unfettered by 
the laws of forensic or parliamentary debate; multitudes uncounted lifting 
up their eyes to him ; some great historical scenes of America around, all 
symbols of her glory and art and power and fortune there ; voices of the 
past, not unheard; shapes beckoning from the future, not unseen, — some- 
times that mighty intellect, borne upwards to a height and kindled to an 
illumination which we shall see no more, wrought out, as it were in an 
instant, a picture of vision, warning, prediction: the progress of- the nation; 
the contrasts of its eras ; the heroic deaths ; the motives to patriotism ; the 
maxims and arts imperial by which the glory has been gathered and may be 
heightened, — wrought out, in an instant, a picture to fade only when all 
record of our mind shall die." 

Our first selection is from an article which Webster contributed to the 
North Atnerican Reviexv, and the second is from his memorable speech 
at the centennial celebration of the birthday of Washington. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL^ 

No national drama was ever developed in a more interesting 
and splendid first scene. The incidents and the result of the 
battle itself were most important, and indeed most wonderful. 
As a mere battle, few surpass it in whatever engages and interests 
the attention. It was fought on a conspicuous eminence, in the 
immediate neighborhood of a populous city, and consequently in 
the view of thousands of spectators. The attacking army moved 
over a sheet of water to the assault. The operations and move- 

1 One of the first and one of the most celebrated battles of the Revolu- 
tionary War, fought June 17, 1775. ^^ i^ commemorated by a granite obelisk, 
two hundred and twenty feet high, on the battle-ground in Charlestown, Mass., 
the corner-stone of which was laid by Lafayette in 1825. 



IVEBSTER 249 

ments were of course all visible and all distinct. Those who 
looked on from the houses and heights of Boston had a fuller 
view of every important operation and event than can ordinarily 
be had of any battle, or than can possibly be had of such as are 
fought on a more extended ground, or by detachments of troops 
acting in different places, and at different times, and in some 
measure independently of each other. When the British columns 
were advancing to the attack, th6 flames of Charlestown (fired, as 
is generally supposed, by a shell) began to ascend. The specta- 
tors, far outnumbering both armies, thronged and crowded on 
every height and every point which afforded a view of the scene, 
themselves constituted a very important part of it. The troops 
of the two armies seemed like so many combatants in an amphi- 
theater. The manner in which they should acquit themselves 
was to be judged of, not, as in other cases of military engage- 
ments, by reports and future history, but by a vast and anxious 
assembly already on the spot, and waiting with unspeakable 
concern and emotion the progress of the day. 

In other battles the recollection of wives and children has been 
used as an excitement to animate the warrior's breast and nerve 
his arm. Here was not a mere recollection, but an actual presence 
of them, and other dear connections, hanging on the skirts of 
the battle, anxious and agitated, feeling almost as if wounded 
themselves by every blow of the enemy, and putting forth, 
as it w^ere, their own strength, and all the energy of their own 
throbbing bosoms, into every gallant effort of their warring 
friends. 

But there was a more comprehensive and vastly more impor- 
tant view of that day's contest than has been mentioned, — a 
view, indeed, which ordinary eyes, bent intently on what was 
immediately before them, did not embrace, but which was per- 
ceived in its full extent and expansion by minds of a higher 
order. Those men who were at the head of the colonial coun- 
cils, who had been engaged for years in the previous stages of 
the quarrel with England, and who had been accustomed to look 
forward to the future, were well apprised of the magnitude of the 



250 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

events ^ likely to hang on the business of that day. They saw in 
it, not only a battle, but the beginning of a civil war of unmeas- 
ured extent and uncertain issue. All America and all England 
were likely to be deeply concerned in the consequences. The 
individuals themselves, who knew full well what agency they had 
in bringing affairs to this crisis, had need of all their courage, — 
not that disregard of personal safety in which the vulgar suppose 
true courage to consist, but that "high and fixed moral sentiment, 
that steady and decided purpose, which enables men to pursue 
a distant end, with a full view of the difficulties and dangers 
before them, and with a conviction that, before they must arrive 
at the proposed end, should they ever reach it, they must pass 
through evil report as well as good report, and be liable to 
obloquy^ as well as to defeat. 

Spirits that fear nothing else fear disgrace ; and this danger 
is necessarily encountered by those who engage in civil war. 
Unsuccessful resistance is not only ruin to its authors, but is 
esteemed, and necessarily so, by the laws of all countries, trea- 
sonable. This is the case, at least, till resistance becomes so 
general and formidable as to assume the form of regular war. 
But who can tell, when resistance commences, whether it will 
attain even to that degree of success? Some of those persons 
who signed the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, described 
themselves as signing it " as with halters about their necks." If 
there were grounds for this remark in 1776, when the cause had 
become so much more general, how much greater was the hazard 
when the battle of Bunker Hill was fought ! These considera- 
tions constituted, to enlarged and liberal minds, the moral sub- 
limity of the occasion ; while to the outward senses, the movement 
of armies, the roar of artillery, the brilliancy of the reflection of a 
summer's sun from the burnished armor of the British columns, 
and the flames of a burning town, made up a scene of extraordi- 
nary grandeur. 

1 issues, results 

2 from Lat. obloqui, " to speak against;" hence reproach, odium 



IVEBSTER 251 

EULOGIUM ON WASHINGTON 

I RISE, gentlemen, to propose to you the name of that great 
man, in commemoration of whose birth and in honor of whose 
character and services we are here assembled. 

I am sure that I express a sentiment common to every one 
present when I say, that there is something more than ordinarily 
solemn and affecting on this occasion. 

We are met to testify our regard for him whose name is inti- 
mately blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the 
prosperity, the liberty, the free institutions, and the renown of our 
country. That name was of power to rally a nation, in the hour 
of thick-thronging public disasters and calamities ; that name 
shone, amid the storm of war, a beacon- light, to cheer and guide 
the country's friends ; it flamed, too, like a meteor, to repel her 
foes. That name, in the days of peace, was a loadstone, attract- 
ing to itself a whole people's confidence, a whole people's love, 
and the whole world's respect ; that name, descending with all 
time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in all the lan- 
guages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will forever be 
pronounced with affectionate gratitude by every one in whose 
breast there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human 
liberty. 

We perform this grateful duty, gentlemen, at the expiration of 
a hundred years from his birth, near the place so cherished and 
beloved by him, where his dust now reposes, and in the capital 
which bears his own immortal name. 

All experience evinces that human sentiments are strongly 
affected by associations. The recurrence of anniversaries, or of 
longer periods of time, naturally freshens the recollection, and 
deepens the impression, of events with which they are historically 
connected. Renowned places, also, have a power to awaken 
feeling, which all acknowledge. No x^merican can pass by the 
fields of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, and Camden as if they were 
ordinary spots on the earth's surface. Whoever visits them feels 
the sentiment of love of country kindling anew, as if the spirit 



252 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

that belonged to the transactions which have rendered these 
places distinguished still hovered round with power to move and 
excite all who in future time may approach them. 

But neither of these sources of emotion equals the power with 
which great moral examples affect the mind. When sublime 
virtues cease to be abstractions, when they become embodied in 
human character, and exemplified in human conduct, we should 
be false to our own nature, if we did not indulge in the spontane- 
ous effusions of our gratitude and our admiration. A true lover 
of the virtue of patriotism delights to contemplate its purest 
models ; and that love of country may well be suspected which 
affects to soar so high into the regions of sentiment as to be lost 
and absorbed in the abstract feeling, and becomes too elevated, 
or too refined, to glow with fervor in the commendation or the 
love of individual benefactors. iVll this is unnatural. It is as if 
one should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry as to care nothing 
for Homer or Milton ; so passionately attached to eloquence as 
to be indifferent to Tully ^ and Chatham ; ^ or such a devotee to 
the arts, in such an ecstasy with the elements of beauty, propor- 
tion, and expression, as to regard the masterpieces of Raphael 
and Michael Angelo ^ with coldness or contempt. 

We may be assured, gentlemen, that he who really loves the 
thing itself loves its finest exhibitions. A true friend of his 
country loves her friends and benefactors, and thinks it no degra- 
dation to commend and commemorate them. The voluntary 
outpouring of public feeling made to-day,^ from the north to the 
south, and from the east to the west, proves this sentiment to be 
both just and natural. In the cities and in the villages, in the 
public temples and in the family circles, among all ages and sexes, 
gladdened voices to-day bespeak grateful hearts and a freshened 



^ /. e. Cicero, Marcus Tidliiis, the Roman orator 

2 William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778 

^ Raphael and Michael Angelo, celebrated Italians, — the former as a 
painter, and the latter as a sculptor and an architect ; both were born in 
the latter part of the fifteenth century 

^ Washington's birthday, 1S32 



IVEBSTER 253 

recollection of the virtues of the father of his country. And it 
will be so in all time to come, so long as public virtue is itself an 
object of regard. The ingenuous ^ youth of America will hold up 
to themselves the bright model of Washington's example, and 
study to be what they behold ; they will contemplate his charac- 
ter till all its virtues spread out and display themselves to their 
delighted vision, as the earliest astronomers, the shepherds on the 
plains of Babylon, gazed at the stars till they saw them form into 
clusters and constellations ^ overpowering at length the eyes of 
the beholders with the united blaze of a thousand lights. 

Gentlemen, we are at the point of a century from the birth of 
Washington ; and what a century it has been ! During its course 
the human mind has seemed to proceed with a sdrt of geometric 
velocity,^ accomplishing for human intelligence and human free- 
dom more than had been done in fives or tens of centuries 
preceding. W^ashington stands at the commencement of a new 
era, as well as at the head of the new world. A century from 
the birth of Washington has changed the world. The country 
of Washington has been the theater on which a great part of 
that change has been wrought ; and Washington himself a prin- 
cipal agent by which it has been accomplished. His age and his 
country are equally full of wonders, and of both he is the chief. 

If the prediction of the poet, uttered a few years before his birth, 
be true ; if indeed it be designed by Providence that the proudest 
exhibition of human character and human affairs shall be made 
on this theater of the Western world ; if it be true that, — 

" The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 
Time's noblest offspring is the last," * — 



1 free-born 2 Etymology ? 

3 i. e. by geometrical ratio ; as 2-4-8-16, etc., and not by arithmetical ratio, 
as 2-4-6-8, etc. 

* The lines are from an ode on the " Future of America," written by 
Bishop Berkeley on the eve of his coming to this country in 1728. The line 
preceding those quoted by Webster, — 

" Westward the course of empire takes its way," — 
is so familiar as to be hackneyed, and is generally misquoted. 



254 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

how could this imposing, swelhng, final scene be appropriately 
opened, how could its intense interest be adequately sustained, 
but by the introduction of just such a character as our Washington? 
Washington had attained his manhood when that spark of 
liberty was struck out in his own country, which has since kindled 
into a flame and shot its beams over the earth. In the flow of a 
century from his birth, the world has changed in science, in arts, 
in the extent of commerce, in the improvement of navigation, 
and in all that relates, to the civilization of man. But it is the 
spirit of human freedom, the new elevation of individual man, 
in his moral, social, and political character, leading the whole 
long train of other improvements, which has most remarkably 
distinguished the era. Society, in this century, has not made its 
progress, hke Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in 
trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased speed round 
the old circles of thought and action ; but it has assumed a 
new character ; it has raised itself from beneath governments to 
participation /;/ governments ; it has mixed moral and political 
objects with the daily pursuits of individual men, and, with a 
freedom and strength before altogether unknown, it has apphed 
to these objects the whole power of the human understanding. 
It has been the era, in short, when the social principle has 
triumphed over the feudal principle ; when society has main- 
tained its rights against military power, and established, on 
foundations never hereafter to be shaken, its competency to 
govern itself. 



THE AMERICAN UNION i 

I HAVE not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to 
see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. Nor could 
I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government 
whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how 



from a speech delivered in the United States Senate, January 26, 1S30 



JVEBSTER 255 

the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be 
the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and de- 
stroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying 
prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond 
that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day 
at least, that curtain may not rise ! God grant that, on my vision 
never may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be 
turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may they 
not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments 
of a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, 
belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may 
be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance 
rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known 
and honored throughout the earth, still full-high advanced ; its 
arms and trophies streaming in all their original luster, not a 
stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured ; bearing for 
its motto no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this 
worth? " nor those other words of delusion and folly, of '' Liberty 
first, and Union afterwards;" but everywhere, spread all over in 
characters of living light, and blazing on all its ample folds, as 
they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind 
under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to every 
true American heart, — " Liberty and Union, — now and for- 
ever, — one and inseparable." 



Our fathers raised their flag against a power to which, for 
purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the 
height of her glory, is not to be compared, — a power which 
has dotted the surface of the whole globe with her possessions 
and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun 
in his course, and keeping pace with the hours, circles the 
earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial 
airs of England. 



256 



CATHCART S LITERARY READER 



IRVING 

I 783-1 859 

No name in our literary annals is more fondly cherished than that of 
Washington Irving, one of the earliest and most distinguished of American 
writers. He was born in New York in 1783, and died at Sunnyside, his 
home on the Hudson, in 1859. He began his literary career by contributing 
to the columns of the Morning Chronicle, of which his brother, Dr. Peter 
Irving, was editor. His health failing, he went to Europe, where he remained 




^^^2^.^^^^!^'^^ ^"^^^""^^^5^^ % 



two years. On his return he was admitted to the Bar, but gave little atten- 
tion to his profession. In 1807 appeared the first number of Sahnagnndi ; 
or, the Whim- Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff and Others, — a 
semi-monthly periodical of light and agreeable character, which was very 
popular during its existence of less than two years. In 1809 the famous 
" History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker," was published, and 
had a m.ost cordial reception. The next year Washington Irving became a 
partner in the mercantile business conducted by his brothers ; but in 18 12 
the firm failed, and the young author returned to literary labors. 



IRVING 257 

"The Sketch-Book" appeared in 1819, and established his fame in Eng- 
land and America. " Bracebridge Hall," "The Conquest of Granada," 
"The Life of Columbus," and other works, were issued at intervals prior 
to 1832. In 1S42 he was appointed United States Minister to Spain, and 
held that office four years. After his return he wrote a " Life of Goldsmith," 
"The Life of Washington," and "Mahomet and his Successors." It is safe 
to say that no American author has been so generally and heartily loved as 
Washington Irving, and he was as popular in Great Britain as at home. 
His style is a model of ease, grace, and refinement. Thackeray pays this 
tribute to the character of Irving : " In his family gentle, generous, good- 
humored, affectionate, self-denying ; in society a delightful example of com- 
plete gentlemanhood, quite unspoiled by prosperity, never obsequious to 
the great (or, worse still, to the base and mean, as some public men are 
forced to be in his and other countries), eager to acknowledge every con- 
temporary's merit, always kind and affable with the young members of his 
calling, in his professional bargains and mercantile dealings delicately hon- 
est and grateful. He was at the same time one of the most charming mas- 
ters of our lighter language, the constant friend to us and our nation, to 
men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, but as an 
exemplar of goodness, probity, and a pure life." Our extracts are from 
"The Sketch-Book" and "The Life of Columbus." 



ICHABOD CRANE 



In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the 
eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the 
river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan 
Zee, and where they ahvays prudently shortened sail, and im- 
plored the protection of Saint Nicholas when they crossed, there 
Ues a small market-town or rural port, which by some is called 
Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known 
by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, 
in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, 
from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about 
the village tavern on market-days. Be that as it may, I do not 
vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being 
precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about 

17 



2S8 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among 
high hills, which is one of the quietest ])laces in the whole world. 
A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull 
one to repose ; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping 
of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in 
upon the uniform tranquillity. 

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel- 
shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side 
of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon-time, when all 
nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my 
own gun as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was pro- 
longed and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should 
wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its 
distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled 
life, I know of none more promising than this little valley. 

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar char- 
acter of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original 
Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the 
name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy 
Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. \ drowsy, 
dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to perv^ade 
the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by 
a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement ; 
others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his 
tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered 
by Master Hendrick Hudson. ^ Certain it is, the place still con- 
tinues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell 
over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a 
continual revery. They are given to all kinds of marvelous 
beliefs ; are subject to trances and visions ; and frequently see 
strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole 
neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and 
twilight superstitions ; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener 
across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the 

1 Henry Hudson, the English navigator who discovered the Hudson 
River in 1609 



IRVING 259 

nightmare, with her whole nine fold,^ seems to make it the favorite 
scene of her gambols. 

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted 
region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers 
of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without 
a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, 
whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some 
nameless battle during the Revolutionary War ; and who is ever 
and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the gloom 
of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not con- 
fined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, 
and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. 
Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, 
who have been careful in collecting and collating ^ the floating 
facts concerning this specter, allege that, the body of the trooper 
having been buried in the church-yard, the ghost rides forth to 
the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head ; and that the 
rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, 
like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a 
hurry to get back to the church-yard before daybreak. 

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which 
has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of 
shadows ; and the specter is known, at all the country firesides, 
by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. 

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned 
is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is 
unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. 
However wide awake they may have been before they entered 
that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the 
witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, — to 
dream dreams and see apparitions. 

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; ^ for it is in 
such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed 

1 Irving's " nine fold " must be construed to mean " nine foals,'" — a 
grotesque addition to make tiie fancy more alarming. 

2 collecting . . . collating; discriminate ^ laudation, praise 



26o CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

in the great state of New York, that population, manners, and 
customs remain fixed ; while the great torrent of migration and 
improvement which is making such incessant changes in other 
parts of this restless country sweeps by them unobserved. They 
are like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid 
stream ; where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at 
anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed 
by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have 
elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I 
question whether I should not still find the same trees and the 
same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom. 

In this by-place of Nature there abode, in a remote period of 
American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy 
wight of the name of Ichabod Crane ; who sojourned, or, as he 
expressed it, " tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of 
instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Con- 
necticut, — a state which supplies the Union with pioneers for the 
mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions 
of frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters. The cogno- 
men ^ of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, 
but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, 
hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have 
served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. 
His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green 
glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather- 
cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind 
blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy 
day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might 
have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the 
earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield. 

His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely 
constructed of logs ; the windows partly glazed, and partly 
patched with leaves of old copy-books. It was most ingeniously 
secured at vacant hours by a withe ^ twisted in the handle of the 



surname ^ a band of twigs 



IRVING 261 

door, and stakes set against the window-shutters ; so that, though 
a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some 
embarrassment in getting out, — an idea most probably borrowed 
by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eel- 
pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situ- 
ation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close 
by, and a formidable birch-tree^ growing at one end of it. From 
hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their 
lessons, might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of 
a beehive, interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of 
the master, in the tone of menace or command ; or, peradventure, 
by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy 
loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he 
was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden 
maxim, " Spare the rod, and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's 
scholars certainly were not spoiled. 

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one oi 
those cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of theii 
subjects ; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimi- 
nation rather than severity ; taking the burden off the backs of 
the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny 
stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed 
by with indulgence ; but the claims of justice were satisfied by 
inflicting a double portion on some little tough, wrong-headed, 
broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew 
dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called " doing 
his duty by their parents;" and he never inflicted a chastise- 
ment without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the 
smarting urchin, that " he would remember it, and thank him for 
it, the longest day he had to live." 

'^formidable birch-free. Note the humorous suggestiveness of the phrase. 



262 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



n. 

When school-hours were over, he was even the companion and 
playmate of the larger boys ; and on holiday afternoons would 
convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have 
pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the 
comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on 
good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school 
was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him 
with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had 
the dilating powers of an anaconda ; but to help out his main- 
tenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts, 
boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children 
he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time ; 
thus going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly 
effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief. 

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his 
rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a 
grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had vari- 
ous ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He 
assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms ; 
helped to make hay ; mended the fences ; took the horses to 
water ; drove the cows from pasture ; cut wood for the winter 
fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute 
sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and 
became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating He found favor in 
the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the 
youngest ; and like the lion bold, which whilom ^ so magnani- 
mously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, 
and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together. 

. In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master 
of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by 
instructing the young folks in psalmody.^ It was a matter of no 
little vanity to him, on Sundays, to take his station in front of the 

1 once, formerly - Give the double etymology. 



/RISING 263 

church gallery, with a band of chosen singers ; where, in his own 
mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson. 
Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the con- 
gregation ; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that 
church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the 
opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning, which 
are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod 
Crane. Thus by divers little makeshifts in that ingenious way 
which is commonly denominated " by hook and by crook," the 
worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by 
all who understood nothing of the labor of head-work, to have a 
wonderfully easy life of it. 

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in 
the female circle of a rural neighborhood, being considered a 
kind of idle gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste 
and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, 
inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance, there- 
fore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farm- 
house, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or 
sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver tea-pot. 
Our man of letters, therefore, was pecuHarly happy in the smiles 
of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them 
in the churchyard, between services on Sundays ! gathering 
grapes for them from the wild vines that overran the surround- 
ing trees ; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the 
tombstones ; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along 
the banks of the adjacent mill-pond ; while the more bashful 
country bumpkins ^ hung sheepishly back, envying his superior 
elegance and address. 

From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling 
gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to 
house ; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfac- 
tion. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of 
great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, 
and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's " History of New 



1 bumpkins (See Webster for the etymology of this word.) 



264 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

England Witchcraft," — in which, by the way, he most firmly and 
potently believed. 

He was, in fact, a mixture of small shrewdness and simple 
credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of 
digesting it, were equally extraordinary ; and both had been 
increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. No tale 
was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. ^ It was 
often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, 
to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little 
brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there con over 
old Mather's direful tales until the gathering dusk of the evening 
made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he 
wended ^ his way, by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to 
the farm-house where he happened to be quartered, every sound 
of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagina- 
tion, — the moan of the whippoorwill from the hill-side ; the 
boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm ; the dreary 
hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket 
of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which 
sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled 
him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his 
path ; and if by chance a huge blockhead of a beetle came 
winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet^ was 
ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with 
a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either 
to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm- 
tunes ; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by 
their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing 
his nasal melody, in "linked sweetness long drawn out,"* floating 
from the distant hill, or along the dusky road. 

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long 
winter evenings with the old Dutch wives as they sat spinning 
by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along 
the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts and 

^ voracity; /. e. greedy credulity '^ a lowly creature (compare valet) 

2 What is the commoner form? * from Milton's "L'Allegro" 



IRVING 265 

goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted 
bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless 
horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they some- 
times called him. He would delight them equally by his anec- 
dotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous 
sights and sounds in the air which prevailed in the earlier times 
of Connecticut ; and would frighten them wofully with specula- 
tions upon comets and shooting stars ; and with the alarming 
fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they 
were half the time topsy-turvy ! 

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in 
the chimney-corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow 
from the crackling wood-fire, and where, of course, no specter 
dared to show his face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors 
of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and 
shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a 
snowy night ! With what wistful look did he eye every trem- 
bling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some 
distant window ! How often was he appalled by some shrub 
covered with snow, which, like a sheeted specter, beset his very 
path ! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound 
of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet, and dread 
to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth 
being tramping close behind him ! And how often was he 
thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling 
among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian 
on one of his nightly scourings ! 

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms 
of the mind, that walk in darkness ; and though he had seen 
many specters in his time, and been more than once beset by 
Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet day- 
light put an end to all these evils ; and he would have passed 
a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if 
his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more per- 
plexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race 
of witches put together, and that was — a woman. 



266 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

It was on Friday morning, the 12 th of October, 1492, that 
Columbus first beheld the New World. i\s the day dawned 
he saw before him a level island, several leagues in extent, and 
covered with trees hke a continual orchard. Though apparently 
uncultivated, it was populous, for the inhabitants were seen 
issuing from all parts of the woods and running to the shore. 
They were perfectly naked, and as they stood gazing at the 
ships, appeared by their attitudes and gestures to be lost in 
astonishment. 

Columbus made signals for the ships to cast anchor, and the 
boats to be manned and armed. He entered his own boat, 
richly attired in scarlet, and holding the royal standard ; whilst 
Martin Alonzo Pinzon and Vincent Janez, his brother, put off in 
company in their boats, each with a banner of the enterprise 
emblazoned with a green cross, having on either side the letters 
F. and Y., the initials of the Castilian monarchs Fernando and 
Ysabel, surmounted by crowns. 

As he approached the shore, Columbus, who was disposed for 
all kinds of agreeable impressions, was delighted with the purity 
and suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the sea, 
and the extraordinary beauty of the vegetation. He beheld, also, 
fruits of an unknown kind upon the trees which overhung the 
shores. On landing, he threw himself on his knees, kissed the 
earth, and returned thanks to God with tears of joy. His exam- 
ple was followed by the rest, whose hearts indeed overflowed with 
the same feelings of gratitude. 

Columbus, then rising, drew his sword, displayed the royal 
standard, and assembUng round him the two captains, with Rod- 
rigo de Escobedo, notary of the armament, Rodrigo Sanchez, and 
the rest who had landed, he took solemn possession in the name 
of the Castilian sovereigns, giving the island the name of San 
Salvador. Having complied with the requisite forms and cere- 
monies, he called upon all present to take the oath of obedience 



IRVING 267 

to him, as admiral and viceroy representing the persons of the 
sovereigns. 

The feehngs of the crew now burst forth in the most extrava- 
gant transports. They had recently considered themselves devoted 
men, hurrying forward to destruction ; they now looked upon 
themselves as favorites of fortune, and gave themselves up to the 
most unbounded joy. They thronged around the admiral with 
overflowing zeal, some embracing him, others kissing his hands. 
Those who had been most mutinous and turbulent during the 
voyage were now most devoted and enthusiastic. Some begged 
favors of him, as if he had already wealth and honors in his gift. 
Many abject spirits, who had outraged him by their insolence, 
now crouched at his feet, begging pardon for all the trouble they 
had caused him, and promising the blindest obedience • for the 
future. 

The natives of the island, when, at the dawn of day, they had 
beheld the ships hovering on their coast, had supposed them 
monsters which had issued from the deep during the night. They 
had crowded to the beach, and watched their movements with 
awful anxiety. Their veering about, apparently without effort, 
and the shifting and furling of their sails, resembling huge wings, 
filled them with astonishment. When they beheld their boats 
approach the shore, and a number of strange beings clad in glit- 
tering steel, or raiment of various colors, landing upon the beach, 
they fled in affright to the woods. 

Finding, however, that there was no attempt to pursue nor 
molest them, they gradually recovered from their terror, and 
approached the Spaniards with great awe, frequently prostrating 
themselves on the earth, and making signs of adoration. During 
the ceremonies of taking possession, they remained gazing in 
timid admiration at the complexion, the beards, the shining 
armor, and splendid dress of the Spaniards. The admiral partic- 
ularly attracted their attention, from his commanding height, his 
air of authority, his dress of scarlet, and the deference which 
was paid him by his companions ; all which pointed him out 
to be the commander. 



268 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

When they had still further recovered from their fears, they 
approached the Spaniards, touched their beards, and examined 
their hands and faces, admiring their whiteness. Columbus was 
pleased with their gentleness and confiding simplicity, and suffered 
their scrutiny with perfect acquiescence, winning them by his 
benignity. They now supposed that the ships had sailed out of 
the crystal firmament which bounded their horizon, or had 
descended from above on their ample wings, and that these mar- 
velous beings were inhabitants of the skies. 

The natives of the island were no less objects of curiosity to 
the Spaniards, differing as they did from any race of men they 
had ever seen. Their appearance gave no promise of either 
wealth or civilization, for they were entirely naked, and painted 
with a variety of colors. With some it was confined merely to 
a part of the face, the nose, or around the eyes ; with others it 
extended to the whole body, and gave them a wild and fantastic 
appearance. Their complexion was of a tawny or copper hue, 
and they were entirely destitute of beards. Their hair was not 
crisped, like the recently discovered tribes of the African coast, 
under the same latitude, but straight and coarse, partly cut short 
above the ears, but some locks were left long behind and falling 
upon their shoulders. 

As Columbus supposed himself to have landed on an island at 
the extremity of India, he called the natives by the general appel- 
lation of Indians, which was universally adopted before the true 
nature of his discovery was known, and has since been extended 
to all the aboriginals of the New World. The islanders were 
friendly and gentle. Their only arms were lances, hardened at 
the end by fire, or pointed with a flint, or the teeth or bone of 
a fish. There was no iron to be seen, nor did they appear 
acquainted with its properties ; for when a drawn sword was 
presented to them, they unguardedly took it by the edge. 

Columbus distributed among them colored caps, glass beads, 
hawks' bells, and other trifles, such as the Portuguese were 
accustomed to trade with among the nations of the Gold Coast 
of Africa. They received them eagerly, hung the beads round 



IRVING 269 

their necks, and were wonderfully pleased with their finery, and 
with the sound of the bells. The Spaniards remained all day 
on shore, refreshing themselves after their anxious voyage amidst 
the beautiful groves of the island, and returned on board late in 
the evening, delighted with all they had seen. 

On the following morning, at break of day, the shore was 
thronged with the natives; some swam off to the ships, others 
came in light barks, which the}' called canoes, formed of a single 
tree, hollowed, and capable of holding from one man up to the 
number of forty or fifty. These they managed dexterously with 
paddles, and, if overturned, swam about in the water with perfect 
unconcern, as if in their natural element, righting their canoes 
with great facility, and baling them with calabashes.^ 

They were eager to procure more toys and trinkets, not, 
apparently, from any idea of their intrinsic value, but because 
everything from the hands of the strangers possessed a super- 
natural virtue in their eyes, as having been brought from heaven ; 
they even picked up fragments of glass and earthenware as valu- 
able prizes. They had but few objects to offer in return, except 
parrots, of which great numbers were domesticated among them, 
and cotton yarn, of which they had abundance, and would ex- 
change large balls of five and twenty pounds' weight for the 
merest trifle. 

The avarice of the discoverers was quickly excited by the sight 
of small ornaments of gold worn by some of the natives in their 
noses. These the latter gladly exchanged for glass beads and 
hawks' bells ; and both parties exulted in the bargain, no doubt 
admiring each other's simplicity. As gold, however, was an ob- 
ject of royal monopoly in all enterprises of discovery, Columbus 
forbade any traffic in it without his express sanction ; and he 
put the same prohibition on the traffic for cotton, reser\dng to 
the Crown all trade for it, wherever it should be found in any 
quantity. 

He inquired of the natives where this gold was procured. 
They answered him by signs, pointing to the south, where, he 

1 gourds from the calabash-tree 



270 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

understood them, dwelt a king of such wealth that he was served 
in vessels of wrought gold. He understood, also, that there was 
land to the south, the southwest, and the northwest ; and that 
the people from the last-mentioned quarter frequently proceeded 
to the southwest in quest of gold and precious stones, making in 
their way descents upon the islands, and carrying off the inhabi- 
tants. Several of the natives showed him scars of wounds re- 
ceived in battles with these invaders. It is evident that a great 
part of this fancied intelligence was self-delusion on the part of 
Columbus ; for he was under a spell of the imagination, which 
gave its own shapes and colors to every object. 

He was persuaded that he had arrived among the islands de- 
scribed by Marco Polo ^ as lying opposite Cathay, in the Chinese 
Sea, and he construed everything to accord with the account 
given of those opulent regions. Thus the enemies which the 
natives spoke of as coming from the northwest he concluded to 
be the people of the mainland of Asia, the subjects of the great 
Khan of Tartary, who were represented by the Venetian traveler 
as accustomed to make war upon the islands and to enslave their 
inhabitants. The country to the south, abounding in gold, could 
be no other than the famous island of Cipango ; and the king, 
who was served out of vessels of gold, must be the monarch 
whose magnificent city and gorgeous palace, covered with plates 
of gold, had been extolled in such splendid terms by Marco 
Polo. 

The island where Columbus had thus, for the first time, set his 
foot upon the New World, was called by the natives Guanahane. 
It still retains the name of San Salvador, which he gave to it, 
though called by the English Cat Island. The light which he 
had seen the evening previous to his making land may have been 
on Watling's Island, which lies a few leagues to the east. San 
Salvador is one of the great cluster of the Lucayos, or Bahama 
Islands, which stretch southeast and northwest from the coast 
of Florida to Hispaniola, covering the northern coast of Cuba. 

1 A renowned Venetian traveler, born about 1252. He was the first Euro- 
pean that entered China or made any extended journey into Central Asia. 



BYRON 



271 



BYRON 

I 788-1 824 

George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in 1788, and died in 1824. In 
youth he was precocious, manifesting remarkable intellectual power, but 
giving evidence also of a wild and ungovernable temper. Leaving Trinity 
College, Cambridge, at the age of nineteen, he prepared a volume of poems 
for publication, which, under the title of " Hours of Idleness," was severely 




ridiculed by the Edinburgh Review. A year later appeared Byron's reply, 
" English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," — one of the most powerful and 
scorching satires ever written. Having traveled for two years on the Con- 
tinent, Byron returned to England, and in 1812 published the first two cantos 
of " Childe Harold," which is generally esteemed his greatest work. In 
1816 he left England, which he declared he would never revisit. He spent 
some time at Geneva with literary friends, and then settled in Italy, 
where he wrote " Manfred,'' the concluding canto of " Childe Harold,'' 



272 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

"Mazeppa," and the first part of " Don Juan." In 1820 he was associated 
with Shelley and Leigh Hunt in the publication of a periodical called The 
Liberal, in which '-The Vision of Judgment" was first printed. In 1823 
he went to Greece, where he intended to aid the Greeks in their resistance 
to Turkish oppression. But he was seized with epilepsy, and rheumatic 
fever ensuing, he died April 19, 1824. 

Byron's poems are marvels of energy and spirit, glittering with poetical 
beauties and epigrammatic expression. He possesses, in the words of 
Matthew Arnold, to an extraordinary degree " the virtues of sincerity and 
strength." But a profound morbidness pervades his poems, and the 
thoughtful reader feels himself, as he ponders their passionate, defiant 
philosophy, to be in the presence of an unhealthy mind. Taine's criticism 
is acute : " No such great poet has had so narrow an imagination; he could 
not metamorphose himself into another. They are his own sorrows, his own 
revolts, his own travels, which, hardly transformed and modified, he intro- 
duces into his verses. He does not invent, he observes ; he does not create, 
he transcribes. His copy is darkly exaggerated, but it is a copy. ' I could 
not write upon anything,' says he, * without some personal experience and 
foundation.' You will find in his letters and note-book, almost feature for 
feature, the most striking of his descriptions. The capture of Ismail, the 
shipwreck of Don Juan, are, almost word for word, like two accounts of it 
in prose. If none but cockneys could attribute to him the crimes of his 
heroes, none but blind men could fail to see in him the sentiments of his 
characters. This is so true, that he has not created more than one." 



MODERN GREECE 

Clime of the unforgotten brave ! 
Whose land from plain to mountain cave 
Was freedom's home or glory's grave ! 
Shrine of the mighty ! can it be, 
That this is all remains of thee ? 
Approach, thou craven crouching slave : 

Say, is not this Thermopylae ? -^ 

1 Thermopylae. A mountain defile in Greece where Leonidas (480 B.C.), 
at the head of three hundred Spartans, withstood the whole force of the 
Persian army for three days. It is said that more than twenty thousand 
Persians perished in the memorable combat, and only one Greek survived. 
This battle is thought to afford the finest recorded instance of heroic 
bravery. 



BYRON 

These waters blue that round you lave, 

O servile offspring of the free, — 
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this ? 
The gulf, the rock of Salamis ! ^ 
These scenes, their story not unknown. 
Arise and make again your own ; 
Snatch from the ashes of your sires 
The embers of their former fires ; 
And he who in the strife expires 
Will add to theirs a name of fear, 
That tyranny shall quake to hear, 
And leave his sons a hope, a fame, 
They too will rather die than shame ; 
For freedom's battle, once begun, 
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, 
Though baffled oft, is ever won. 
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page, 
Attest it many a deathless age ! 
While kings, in dusty darkness hid. 
Have left a nameless pyramid ; 
Thy heroes, though the general doom 
Hath swept the column from their tomb, 
A mightier monument command, — 
The mountains of their native land ! 
There points thy muse to stranger's eye 
The graves of those that can not die. 
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, 
Each step from splendor to disgrace ; 
Enough, — no foreign foe could quell 
Thy soul, till from itself it fell ; 
Yes ! self-abasement paved the way 
To villain ^ bonds and despot sway. 



273 



1 Salamis. This refers to a celebrated naval battle between the Greeks 
and the Persians, where the latter were disastrously defeated. 



slavish, servile 

18 



2/4 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

ROME 

O Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 
/ In their shut breasts their petty misery. 

What are our woes and sufferance ^ ? Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye, 
Whose agonies are evils of a day, — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay ! 

The Niobe ^ of nations ! there she stands. 
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
An empty urn within her withered hands, 
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago ; 
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ; 
The very sepulchers he tenantless 
Of their heroic dwellers ; dost thou flow, 
Old Tiber, through a marble wilderness? 
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle ^ her distress. 

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride ; * 
She saw her glories star by star expire. 
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride. 
Where the car climbed the Capitol ; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site ; 
Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void. 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar ^ light, 
And say, " Here was, or is," where all is doubly night? 

1 suffering, misery 

2 the fabled wife of Tantalus, struck dumb with grief 

3 cover, as with a mantle 

* dealt upon . . . pride ; i. e. have worked their pleasure upon, etc. 
^ /. e. even a feeble light 



BYRON 275 

The double night of ages, and of her, 
Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap 
All round us ; we but feel our way to err : 
The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map, 
And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
But Rome is as the desert, where we steer 
Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap 
Our hands, and cry " Eureka ! it is clear," — 
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. 

Alas ! the lofty city ! and alas ! 
The trebly hundred triumphs ! and the day 
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass 
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! 
Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay. 
And Livy's pictured page ! — but these shall be 
Her resurrection ; all beside — decay. 
Alas for Earth, for never shall we see 
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free ! 



THE OCEAN 



Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin, — his control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan. 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncofifined, and unknown.^ 

^ Compare Scott's "Unwept, unhonored, and unsung," page 221. 



2/6 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

His stej^s are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies. 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay. 
And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay.-^ 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals. 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war, — 
These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.^ 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee, — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? 
Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts ; — not so thou ; — 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, — 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time. 
Calm or convulsed, — in breeze, or gale, or storm. 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 

1 Note the bad grammar 

'■^ This line refers to two historical naval battles in which the British were 
victorious. 



BYRON 277 

Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime, — 
The image of Eternity, — the throne 
Of the Invisible ; e'en from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made : each zone 
Obeys thee : thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

And I have loved thee. Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers, — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror, — 't was a pleasing fear. 
For I was as it were a child of thee. 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane, — as I do here. 



I SAW THEE WEEP 

I SAW thee weep, — the big bright tear 

Came o'er that eye of blue ; 
And then methought it did appear 

A violet dropping dew; 
I saw thee smile, — the sapphire's blaze 

Beside thee ^ ceased to shine ; 
It could not match the living rays 

That filled that glance of thine. 

As clouds from yonder sun receive 

A deep and mellow dye. 
Which scarce the shade of coming eve 

Can banish from the sky. 
Those smiles unto the moodiest mind 

Their own pure joy impart ; 
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind 

That lightens o'er the heart. 



1 i. e. compared with thee 



2;8 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



BRYANT 

1 797-1 878 

William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, in 
1797, and died in New York City in 1878, from the effects of a sunstroke. 
At the age of ten he made translations from the Latin poets, which were 
published, and three years later wrote " The Embargo," a satirical poem of 
much merit. He studied law, and practiced that profession for some time in 




C^7^o^:&^yM> 



Great Barrington, Massachusetts. His early productions were regarded as 
the work of a precocious genius which would surely spend itself in these 
premature efforts ; but the appearance of " Thanatopsis," which was written 
in his nineteenth year, and was published in the North American Review, 
proved conclusively that he was not a mere youthful prodigy. In 1S25 he 
removed to New York, and, with a partner, established the N'ew York Review 
and Athen(^um Magazine, to which he contributed some of his best poems. 



BRYANT 279 

The next year he became editor of the Evening Post, which place he held 
at the time of his death. 

In England his poetry is held in high esteem ; " Thanatopsis," " To a 
Waterfowl," and " Green River " have received especial praise from leading 
English critics. Bryant was distinctively a student and interpreter of Na- 
ture ; all her aspects and voices were familiar to him, and are reproduced in 
his poetry with a solemn and ennobling beauty which has never been attained 
by any other American poet. Washington Irving says: "Bryant's writings 
transport us into the depths of the solemn primeval forest ; to the shores of 
the lonely lake; the banks of the wild, nameless stream ; or the brow of the 
rocky upland rising like a promontory from amidst a wide ocean of foliage; 
while they shed around us the glories of a climate fierce in its extremes, but 
splendid in all its vicissitudes." In many respects his verse resembles 
Wordsworth's, but its spirit is less introspective. Another striking charac- 
teristic of Bryant's poetry is its lofty moral tone, — the eloquence of a great 
intellect warmed and controlled by high and pure impulses. 



THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS 

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, 

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. 

Heaped in the hollows of the grove the withered leaves lie dead ; 

They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread. 

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay. 

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. 

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang 

and stood 
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ? 
Alas ! they all are in their graves ; the gentle race of flowers 
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. 
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain 
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. 

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, 
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer's glow ; 
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood. 
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, 



28o CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on 

men, 
And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, 

and glen. 

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will 

come. 
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home ; 
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees 

are still. 
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill. 
The south-wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he 

bore. 
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. 

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, 
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. 
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, 
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; 
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours. 
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. 



THANATOPSIS 



To him who in the love of Nature holds 

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 

A various language ; for his gayer hours 

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 

And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 

Into his darker musings with a mild 

And gentle sympathy that steals away 

Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts 

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 



BRYANT 281 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house. 

Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart. 

Go forth unto the open sky, and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 

Comes a still voice : 

Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
To mix forever with the elements ; 
To be a brother to the insensible rock. 
And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain 
Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. 

Yet not to thy eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone, — nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant ^ world, — with kings, 
The powerful of the earth, — the wise, the good, 
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past. 
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills, 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales. 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods ; rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks. 
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 

1 the young, that is, the ancient world 



282 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands, . 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
Save his own dashings, — yet the dead are there. 
And miUions in those solitudes, since first 
The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep ; — the dead reign there alone. 
So shalt thou rest ; and what if thou withdraw 
In silence from the living, and no friend 
Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase 
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glide away, the sons of men — 
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron and maid. 
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles 
And beauty of its innocent age cut off — 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side 
By those who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan that moves 
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
• Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 

Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed 



BRYANT 283 

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and hes down to pleasant dreams. 



TO A WATERFOWL 

Whither, midst falling dew. 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly limned ^ upon the crimson sky. 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean side? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 
The desert ^ and illimitable air, — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

x\ll day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere ; 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land. 

Though the dark night is near. 

1 outlined 

- adj. empty, vacant ; compare Gray, 
" And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 



284 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend 

Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given. 

And shall not soon depart : 

He who, from zone to zone. 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone. 

Will lead my steps aright. 



Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart 

No man of iron mold and bloody hands. 
Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands 

The passions that consumed his restless heart : 
But one of tender spirit and delicate frame, 
Gentlest, in mien and mind, 
Of gentle womankind, 
Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame : 
One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made 

Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in May, 
Yet, at the thought of others' pain, a shade 
Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away. 

From " The Conqueror s Grave 



CARLYLE 



285 



CARLYLE 

1795-1881 

Thomas CarlylI was born in Scotland in 1795, and died in London 
February 5, 1881. He was the son of a Dumfriesshire farmer. He studied 
at Edinburgh University, and is said to have intended to enter the ministry, 
but abandoned the purpose. His first essays in literature consisted of con- 
tributions to several magazines. Next he translated Goethe's " Wilhelm 




^'^^t^HvX^ K^CiAjL^ 



Meister," and in his labors acquired a warm and lasting love for German 
literature. " Sartor Resartus," in which he laid the first substantial founda- 
tion of his fame, was published in book form in 1834. It is a characteristic 
composition, exhibiting the originality and brilliancy of his thought, and the 
peculiarities and force of his style, in full relief. Three years later appeared 
his " History of the French Revolution." Among his later works are " Past 
and Present," "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," Lives of Schiller and 
Sterling, and "The Life of Frederick the Great." 



286 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Lowell's discriminating judgment of Carlyle is in these words : "The lead- 
ing characteristics of an author who is in any sense original may commonly 
be traced more or less clearly to his earliest works. Everything that Car- 
lyle wrote during this first period thrills with the purest appreciation of what- 
ever is brave and beautiful in human nature, with the most vehement scorn 
of cowardly compromise with things base; and yet, immitigable as his 
demand for the highest in us seems to be, there is always something reas- 
suring in the humorous sympathy with mortal frailty which softens condem- 
nation and consoles for shortcoming. 

'* By degrees the humorous element in his nature gains ground, till it 
overmasters all the rest. Becoming always more boisterous and obtrusive, 
it ends at last, as such humor must, in cynicism. In proportion as his humor 
gradually overbalanced the other qualities of his mind, Carlyle's taste for 
the eccentric, amorphous, and violent in men became excessive, disturbing 
more and more his perception of the more commonplace attributes which 
give consistency to portraiture. His ' French Revolution ' is a series of lurid 
pictures, unmatched for vehement power, but all is painted by eruption- 
flashes in violent light and shade. There are no half-tints, no gradations. 
Of his success, however, in accomplishing what he aimed at, which was to 
haunt the mind with memories of a horrible political nightmare, there can 
be no doubt. Carlyle's historical compositions are wonderful prose-poems, 
full of picture, incident, humor, and character, where we grow familiar with 
his conception of certain leading personages, and even of subordinate ones, 
if they are necessary to the scene, so that they come out living upon the 
stage from the dreary limbo of names ; but this is no more history than 
are the historical plays of Shakespeare." 



EXECUTION OF MARIE-ANTOINETTE i 

On Monday, the 14th of October, 1793, a Cause is pending 
in the Palais de Justice, in the new Revolutionary Court, such 
as these old stone walls never witnessed, — the Trial of Marie- 
Antoinette.2 The once brightest of Queens, now tarnished, 
defaced, forsaken, stands here at Fouquier-Tinville's Judgment- 



1 from the " History of the French Revolution " 

2 Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, was condemned by the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal of the French Republicans, and was executed on the i6th 
October, 1793. (See Burke, page 150.) Her husband, Louis XVL, had been 
guillotined on the 21st of January preceding. 



CARLYLE 287 

bar, answering for her life. The Indictment was dehvered her 
last night. To such changes of human fortune what words are 
adequate? Silence alone is adequate. ... 

Marie-Antoinette, in this her abandonment and hour of ex- 
treme need, is not wanting to herself, the imperial woman. Her 
look, they say, as that hideous indictment was reading, continued 
calm ; " she was sometimes observed moving her fingers, as 
when one plays on the piano." You discern, not without inter- 
est, across that dim Revolutionary Bulletin itself, how she bears 
herself queen-like. Her answers are prompt, clear, often of 
Laconic brevity ; resolution, which has grown contemptuous 
without ceasing to be dignified, veils itself in calm words. 
"You persist then in denial?" — "My plan is not denial; it 
is the truth I have said, and I persist in that." . . . 

At four o'clock on Wednesday morning, after two days and 
two nights of interrogating, jury-charging, and other darkening 
of counsel, the result comes out, — sentence of Death ! " Have 
you anything to say?" The Accused shook her head, without 
speech. Night's candles are burning out ; and with her, too. 
Time is finishing, and it will be Eternity and Day. This Hall 
of Tinville's is dark, ill-lighted except where she stands. Silently 
she withdraws from it, to die. 

Two Processions, or Royal Progresses, three-and-twenty years 
apart, have often struck us with a strange feeling of contrast. 
The first is of a beautiful Archduchess and Dauphiness, quitting 
her mother's city, at the age of fifteen, towards hopes such as 
no other Daughter of Eve then had. " On the morrow," says 
Weber, an eye-witness, " the Dauphiness left Vienna. The whole 
city crowded out ; at first with a sorrow which was silent. She 
appeared ; you saw her sunk back into her carriage, her face 
bathed in tears ; hiding her eyes now with her handkerchief, 
now with her hands ; several times putting out her head to see 
yet again this Palace of her Fathers, whither she was to return 
no more. She motioned her regret, her gratitude, to the good 
Nation, which was crowding here to bid her farewell. Then 
arose not only tears, but piercing cries, on all sides. Men and 



28S CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

women alike abandoned themselves to such expression of their 
sorrow. It was an audible sound of wail, in the streets and 
avenues of Vienna. The last Courier that followed her disap- 
peared, and the crowd melted away." 

The young imperial Maiden of Fifteen has now become a 
worn, discrowned Widow of Thirty-eight, gray before her time. 
This is the last Procession : " Few minutes after the Trial ended, 
the drums were beating to arms in all Sections ; at sunrise the 
armed force was on foot, cannons getting placed at the extremi- 
ties of the Bridges, in the Squares, Crossways, all along from the 
Palais de Justice to the Place de la Revolution. By ten o'clock, 
numerous patrols were circulating in the Streets ; thirty thou- 
sand foot and horse drawn up . under arms. At eleven, Marie- 
Antoinette was brought out. She had on an undress of pique 
blanc (white pique) ; she was led to the place of execution in 
the same manner as an ordinary criminal : bound on a Cart, 
accompanied by a Constitutional Priest in Lay dress, escorted 
by numerous detachments of infantry and cavalry. These, and 
the double row of troops all along her road, she appeared to 
regard with indifference. On her countenance there was visible 
neither abashment nor pride. To the cries of Vive la Repnblique 
(Live the Republic !) and Down with Tyranny, which attended 
her all the way, she seemed to pay no heed. She spoke little to 
her Confessor. The tricolor Streamers on the house-tops occu- 
pied her attention, in the Streets du Roule and Saint-Honor^ ; 
she also noticed the Inscriptions on the house-fronts. On reach- 
ing the Place de la Revolution her looks turned towards the 
Jardin National, whilom Tuileries ; her face at that moment 
gave signs of lively emotion. She mounted the Scaffold with 
courage enough ; at a quarter past Twelve, her head fell ; the 
Executioner showed it to the people, amid universal long- 
continued cries of Vive la Republique'' 



CARLYLE 289 

NIGHT VIEW OF A CITYi 

I LOOK down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive, and witness 
their wax-laying and honey- making, and poison-brewing, and 
choking by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade, where music 
plays while His Serene Highness is pleased to eat his victuals, 
down the low lane, where in her door- sill the aged widow, knit- 
ting for a thin livelihood, sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see it 
all. Couriers arrive bestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and 
Sorrow bagged-up in pouches of leather; there, top-laden, and' 
with four swift horses, rolls in the country Baron and his house- 
hold ; here, on timber-leg, the lamed Soldier hops painfully 
along, begging alms : a thousand carriages, and wains,^ and 
cars, come tumbling- in with Food, with young Rusticity, and 
other Raw Produce, inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out 
again with Produce manufactured. 

That living flood, pouring through these streets, of all qualities 
and ages, knowest thou whence it is coming, whither it is going? 
From Eternity onwards to Eternity ! These are apparitions : 
what else ? Are they not souls rendered visible : in Bodies, 
that took shape and will lose it, melting into air? Their solid 
Pavement is a Picture of the Sense ; they walk on the bosom of 
Nothing, blank Time is behind them and before them. Or 
fanciest thou, the red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder, with 
spurs on its heels and feather in its crown, is but of To-day, 
without a Yesterday or a To-morrow ; and had not rather its 
Ancestor alive when Hengst and Horsa overran thy Island? 
Friend, thou seest here a living link in that Tissue of History, 
which inweaves all Being : watch well, or it will be past thee, 
and seen no more. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up 
through smoke and thousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into 
the ancient region of Night, what thinks Bootes of them, as he 
leads his Hunting-dogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal 
fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has lain down 

1 from " Sartor Resartus " 

2 wain, wagon ; these words have a common origin 

19 



290 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

to rest ; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and 
there through distant streets, are bearing her to Halls roofed-in, 
and lighted to the due pitch for her ; and only Vice and Misery, 
to prowl or to moan like night-birds, are abroad : that hum, I 
say, like the stertorous,^ unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard 
in Heaven ! 

O ! under that hideous coverlet of vapors, and putrefactions, 
and unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering 
and hid ! The joyful and the sorrowful are there ; men are 
'dying there, men are being born ; men are praying, — on the 
other side of a brick partition, men are cursing ; and around 
them all is the vast, void Night. The proud Grandee still Hngers 
in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within damask curtains ; 
Wretchedness cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken 
into its lair of straw; in obscure cellars, Rouge-et-Noir'^ languidly 
emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry villains ; while Coun- 
cilors of State sit plotting, and playing their high chess-game, 
whereof the pawns are Men. The Lover whispers his mistress 
that the coach is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glides 
down, to fly with him over the borders : the Thief, still more 
silently, sets-to his pick-locks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till 
the watchmen first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with 
supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are full of light and music 
and high-swelling hearts ; but, in the condemned cells, the pulse 
of life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes look out 
through the darkness, which is around and within, for the light 
of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on the mor- 
row ; their gallows must even now be o' building. Upwards of 
five-hundred-thousand two-legged animals without feathers lie 
round us, in horizontal position ; their heads all in nightcaps, 
and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers 
and swaggers in his rank dens of shame ; and the Mother, with 
streaming hair, kneels over her pallid, dying infant, whose 
cracked lips only her tears now moisten. — All these heaped and 



1 from Lat. stertcrc, hoarsely breathing 

2 red-and-black, — a gambler's game 



CARLYLE 291 

huddled together, with nothing but a Uttle carpentry and masonry 
between them : — crammed- in, Uke salted fish, in their barrel ; — 
or weltering, shall I say, hke an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, 
each struggling to get its head above the others : such work goes 
on under that smoke- counterpane ! — But I sit above it all ; I am 
alone with the Stars ! 



THE REIGN OF TERRORS 

We are now, therefore, got to that black precipitous abyss, 
whither all things have long been tending; where, having now 
arrived on the giddy verge, they hurl down, in confused ruin ; 
headlong, pellmell, down, down ; — till Sansculottism have con- 
summated itself; and in this wondrous French Revolution, as in 
a Doomsday, a World have been rapidly, if not born again, yet 
destroyed and engulfed. Terror has long been terrible; — but 
to the actors themselves it has now become manifest that their 
appointed course is one of Terror; and they say, "Be it so." 
So many centuries had been adding together, century transmit- 
ting it with increase to century, the sum of Wickedness, of False- 
hood, Oppression of man by man. Kings were sinners, and 
Priests were, and people. Open-Scoundrels rode triumphant, 
be-diademed, be-coronetted, be-mitered ; or the still fataller 
species of Secret- Scoundrels, in their fair-sounding formulas, 
speciosities, respectabilities, hollow within : the race of quacks 
was grown many as the sands of the sea. Till at length such a 
sum of quackery had accumulated itself as, in brief, the Earth 
and the Heavens were weary of. 

Slow seemed the Day of Settlement; coming on, all imper- 
ceptible, across the bluster and fanfaronade of Courtierisms, 
Conquering-Heroisms, Most Christian Grand Monai^qneisms, 
Well-beloved Pompadourisms : yet, behold, it was always coming : 
behold, it has come, suddenly, unlooked for by any man ! The 
harvest of long centuries was ripening and whitening so rapidly 

i from the " History of the French Revolution " 



292 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

of late ; and now it is grown 7vhite, and is reaped rapidly, as it 
were, in one day — reaped in this Reign of Terror ; and carried 
home to Hades and the Pit ! Unhappy Sons of Adam ! it is 
ever so ; and never do they know it, nor will they know it. With 
cheerfully-smoothed countenances, day after day, and generation 
after generation, they, calling cheerfully to one another " Well- 
speed-ye," are at work sowing the wind. And yet, as God lives, 
they shall reap the ivhirlwind ; no other thing, we say, is possi- 
ble, — since God is a Truth and His World is a Truth. 



A HIGHLY interesting lean, little old man, of alert though 
slightly stooping figure ; no crown but an old military cocked 
hat ; no scepter but a walking-stick cut from the woods ; and for 
royal robes a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, and sure 
to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it ; rest of 
the apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or cut, ending in high over- 
knee military boots, which may be brushed, but are not permitted 
to be blackened or varnished. 

The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of im- 
posing stature or costume : close-shut mouth with thin lips, prom- 
inent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian 
height ; head, however, is of long form, and has superlative gray 
eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man, nor yet, by all 
appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face 
bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, of much 
hard labor done in this world, and seems to anticipate nothing 
but more still coming. Most excellent potent brilliant eyes, swift- 
darting as the stars, steadfast as the sun ; gray, we said, of the 
azure-gray color ; large enough, not of glaring size ; the habitual 
expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense. The voice, 
if he speak to you, is of similar physiognomy, clear, melodious, 
and sonorous ; all tones are in it, from that of ingenuous inquiry, 
graceful sociality, light-flowing banter (rather prickly for most 
part) , up to definite word of command, up to desolating word of 
rebuke and reprobation. 

A Picture of the King, from " F^-ederick the Great** 



EMERSON 



293 



EMERSON 

I 803-1882 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803, and died at his 
home in Concord, April 28th, 18S2. He graduated at Harvard College in 
182 1, and after pursuing a course of theological study, became pastor of the 
Second Unitarian Church of Boston. His ministry was brief, however; a 
difference of opinion as to points of doctrine arose between himself and his 




f'(fv^\ ^ 




people, and he resigned his charge. Retiring to the town of Concord, he 
devoted himself to the study of mental and moral philosophy. His first 
published writings — " Man Thinking," " Literary Ethics," and " Nature, an 
Essay " — attracted the attention of thoughtful readers. In 1847 he pub- 
lished his first volume of poems. He is best known by his " Essays " and his 
'* Representative Men." His impress on the thought of his time was great ; 
and though he failed to win a numerous following, he did much towards 
molding the ethical opinions of New England. His books have been 
widely read in England and Germany- 



294 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

Professor John Nichol thus estimates Emerson : " The concentration of 
his style resembles that of a classic, but, as with others who have adopted 
the aphoristic mode of conveying their thoughts, he everywhere sacrifices 
unity to riches of detail. His essays are bundles of loose ideas tacked to- 
gether by a common title, handfuls of scraps tossed down before his audi- 
ence like the contents of a conjuror's hat. He delights in proverbs and apt 
quotations; he exaggerates, loves a contradiction for itself, and prefers a 
surprise to an aigument. His eye is keen, but its range is narrow, and he 
is ignorant of the fact. His taste is constantly at fault, and an incessant 
straining after mots often leads him into caricature. His judgments of those 
whose lives and writings do not square with his theories are valueless; and 
in dealing with foreign languages he betrays the weakness of his scholar- 
ship. His soundest judgments relate to the men around him, of whom 
he is at once the panegyrist and the censor. All that is weak and foolish 
in their mode of life he condemns, all that is noblest and most hopeful he 
applauds. 

" His faults are manifest ; a petulant irreverence, frequent superficiality, 
a rash bravery, an inadequate solution of difficulties deeming itself adequate, 
are among the chief. But he is original, natural, attractive, and direct; 
limpid in his phrase, and pure in fancy. His best eloquence flows as easily 
as a stream. In an era of excessive reticence and cautious hypocrisy he 
lives within a case of crystal where there are no concealments. We never 
suspect him of withholding half of what he knows, or of formularizing for our 
satisfaction a belief which he does not sincerely hold. He is transparently 
honest and honorable. His courage has no limits. Isolated by force of 
character, there is no weakness in his solitude. He leads us into a region 
where we escape at once from deserts and from noisy cities ; for he rises 
above without depreciating ordinary philanthropy, and his philosophy at 
least endeavors to meet our daily wants. In every social and political con- 
troversy he has thrown his weight into the scale of justice, on the side of a 
rational and progressive liberty." 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 

Napoleon understood his business. Here was a man who in 
each moment and emergency knew what to do next. It is an 
immense comfort and refreshment to the spirits, not only of 
kings, but of citizens. Few men have any next; they Uve from 
hand to mouth, without plan, and are ever at the end of their 
line, and, after each action, wait for an impulse from abroad. 



EMERSON 295 

Napoleon had ^ been the first man of the world, if his ends had 
been purely public. As he is, he inspires confidence and vigor 
by the extraordinary unity of his action. 

He is firm, sure, self-denying, self-postponing, sacrificing every- 
thing to his aim, — money, troops, generals, and his own safety 
also ; not misled, like common adventurers, by the splendor of 
his own means. " Incidents ought not to govern policy," he 
said, "but policy incidents." '^To be hurried away by every 
event, is to have no political system at all." His victories were 
only so many doors, and he never for a moment lost sight of his 
way onward in the dazzle and uproar of the present circumstance. 
He knew what to do, and he flew to his mark. 

He would shorten a straight line to come at his object. Hor- 
rible anecdotes may, no doubt, be collected from his history, of 
the price at which he bought his successes ; but he must not, 
therefore, be set down as cruel, but only as one who knew no 
impediment to his will : not bloodthirsty, not cruel ; but woe to 
what thing or person stood in his way ! " Sire, General Clarke 
can not combine with General Junot for the dreadful fire of the 
Austrian battery." " Let him carry the battery." " Sire, every 
regiment that approaches the heavy artillery is sacrificed. Sire, 
what ord ers ? " " Forward ! forward ! ' ' 

In the plenitude of his resources every obstacle seemed to 
vanish. ''There shall be no Alps," he said; and he built his 
perfect roads, climbing by graded galleries their steepest preci- 
pices, until Italy was as open to Paris as any town in France. 
Having decided what was to be done, he did that with might 
and main.2 He put out all his strength. He risked everything, 
and spared nothing, — neither ammunition, nor money, nor 
troops, nor generals, nor himself. If fighting be the best mode 
of adjusting national differences (as large majorities of men seem 
to agree), certainly Bonaparte was right in making it thorough. 

''The grand principle of war," he said, "was, that an army 

' had = would have ; a poetic form 

2 A.-S. mcBgen, strength ; the two words of this phrase, jnight and main, 
are of common origin. 



296 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

ought always to be ready, by day and by night, and at all hours, 
to make all the resistance it is capable of making." He never 
economized his ammunition, but on a hostile position rained a 
torrent of iron, — shells, balls, grape-shot, — to annihilate ^ all 
defense. He went to the edge of his possibility, so heartily was 
he bent on his object. It is plain that in Italy he did what he 
could, and all that he could ; he came several times within an 
inch of ruin, and his own person was all but lost. He was flung 
into the marsh at Areola. The Austrians were between him and 
his troops in the confusion of the struggle, and he was brought 
off with desperate efforts. At Lonato and at other places he 
was on the point of being taken prisoner. 

He fought sixty battles. He had never enough. Each victory 
was a new weapon. " My power would fall, were I not to sup- 
port it by new achievements. Conquest has made me what I 
am, and conquest must maintain^ me." He felt, with every wise 
man, that as much life is needed for conservation as for creation. 
We are always in peril, always in a bad plight, just on the edge 
of destruction, and only to be saved by invention and courage. 
This vigor was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence 
and punctuality. A thunderbolt in the attack, he was found in- 
vulnerable in his intrenchments. His very attack was never the 
inspiration of courage, but the result of calculation.-^ His idea 
of the best defense consisted in being always the attacking party. 
" My ambition," he says, "was great, but was of a cold nature." 

Everything depended on the nicety of his combinations : the 
stars were not more punctual than his arithmetic. His personal 
attention descended to the smallest particulars. " At Montebello 
I ordered Kellermann to attack with eight hundred horse ; and 
with these he separated the six thousand Hungarian grenadiers 
before the very eyes of the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry was 
half a league off, and required a quarter of an hour to arrive on 
the field of action ; and I have observed it is always these quar- 
ters of an hour that decide the fate of a battle." 



1 Derivation.? 



EMERSON 297 

Before he fought a battle Bonaparte thought Httle about what 
he should do in case of success, but a great deal about what he 
should do in case of a reverse of fortune. The same prudence 
and good sense marked all his behavior. His instructions to 
his secretary at the palace are worth remembering : '' During 
the night, enter my chamber as seldom as possible. Do not 
awake me when you have any good news to communicate ; with 
that there is no hurry : but when you bring bad news, rouse 
me instantly, for then there is not a moment to be lost." His 
achievement of business was immense, and enlarges the known 
powers of man. There have been many working kings, from 
Ulysses to William of Orange, but none who accomplished a 
tithe of this man's performance. 

To these gifts of nature Napoleon added the advantage of 
having been born to a private and humble fortune. In his later 
days he had the weakness of wishing to add to his crowns and 
badges the prescription ^ of aristocracy ; but he knew his debt 
to his austere education, and made no secret of his contempt for 
the born kings, and for " the hereditary donkeys," as he coarsely 
styled the Bourbons. He said that, in their exile, ^' they had 
learned nothing, and forgot nothing." Bonaparte had passed 
through all the degrees of military service ; but, also, was citizen 
before he was emperor, and so had the key to citizenship. His 
remarks and estimates discovered the information and justness 
of measurement of the middle class. 

Those who had to deal with him found that he was not to be 
imposed upon, but could cipher as well as another man. When 
the expenses of the empress, of his household, of his palaces, 
had accummulated ^ great debts. Napoleon examined the bills 
of the creditors himself, detected overcharges and errors, and 
reduced the claims by considerable sums. His grand weapon, 
namely, the millions whom he directed, he owed to the repre- 
sentative character which clothed him. He interests us as he 
stands for France and for Europe ; and he exists as captain and 

1 prescription, here used in the legal sense of " immemorial sanction " 
'^ from Lat. cumtilus, a heap 



298 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

king only as far as the Revolution or the interests of the indus- 
trious masses found an organ and a leader in him. 

In the social interests he knew the meaning and value of labor, 
and threw himself naturally on that side. The principal works 
that have survived him are his magnificent roads. He filled his 
troops with his spirit, and a sort of freedom and companionship 
grew up between him and them, which the forms of his court 
never permitted between the officers and himself. They per- 
formed under his eye that which no others could do. The best 
document ^ of his relation to his troops is the order of the day 
on the morning, of the battle of xA-usterHtz, in which Napoleon 
promises the troops that he will keep his person out of reach of 
fire. This declaration, which is the reverse of that ordinarily 
made by generals and sovereigns on the eve of a battle, suffi- 
ciently explains the devotion of the army to their leader. 



GOOD-BY, PROUD WORLD! 

GooD-BY, proud world ! I 'm going home ; 

Thou art not my friend ; I am not thine : 
Too long through weary crowds I roam, — 

A river ark on the ocean brine, 
Too long I am tossed like the driven foam ; 
But now, proud world, I 'm going home. 

Good by to Flattery's fawning face ; 

To Grandeur with his wise grimace : 

To upstart Wealth's averted eye ; 

To supple Office, low and high ; 

To crowded halls, to court and street, 

To frozen hearts, and hasting feet, 

To those who go, and those who come, 

Good by, proud world, I 'm going home. 

1 document = ofiticial evidence, 



EMERSON 299 

I go to seek my own hearth-stone, 
Bosomed m yon green hills alone ; 
A secret lodge in a pleasant land, 
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned, 
Where arches green, the livelong day. 
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,^ 
And evil men have never trod 
A spot that is sacred to thought and God. 

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome ; 
And when I am stretched beneath the pines. 
Where the evening star so holy shines, 
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man. 
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan ; 
For what are they all in their high conceit, 
When man in the bush with God may meet? 



THE SEA 



Behold the Sea, 
The opaline, the plentiful and strong, 
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, 
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July : 
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds. 
Burger of earth, and medicine of men ; 
Creating a sweet cUmate by thy breath. 
Washing out harms and griefs from memory,''^ 
And, in thy mathematic ebb and flow, 
Giving a hint of that which changes not. 
Rich are the sea-gods : —who gives gifts but they? 



1 lit. " a little round;" /. e. a song whose burden is repeated 

2 an allusion to Exodus iii. 2-5 

3 Compare^" Balm of hurt minds r — Mac de^/i, ii. 2- 



300 C AT H CARTS LITERARY READER 

They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls : 

They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise. 

For every wave is wealth to Daedalus, ^ 

Wealth to the cunning artist who can work 

This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves ! 

A load your Atlas shoulders can not lift ! 



CONCORD FIGHT 2 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled. 

Here once the embattled farmers stood. 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream. 

We set to-day a votive stone, 
That memory may their deed redeem. 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and thee. 



^ a skilful craftsman of Grecian mythology 

2 This hymn was composed for the occasion of the unveiling of a monu- 
ment to commemorate the fight at Concord, April 19, 1775. 



BULIVER 



30] 



BULWER 

1805-1873 

Sir Edward Bulwer (Lord Lytton) was born in 1805, and died in 
1873. He graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1826. In 1832 he 
entered Parliament, continuing a member till 1841; in 1852 he was re elected 
to a seat in that body, where he served until his elevation to the peerage. In 
1856 he was chosen Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. At a very 





^^^/-^^W.. 



early age he began to write verses, and long before he reached his majority, 
had published a volume. His first book, " Ismael, an Oriental Tale," bears 
the date of 1820. It was followed by several volumes of verse, and his first 
novel, ** Falkland," appeared in 1827. The next year he gave to the world 
his famous novel, " Pelham," which established his reputation. It was sur- 
passed in merit, however, by some of his subsequent works, especially by 
" Rienzi " and by •' The Caxtons." Bulwer distinguished himself in almost 
every department of literature, — as poet, essayist, novelist, and dramatist. 
Two of his plays, " The Lady of Lyons " and " Richelieu," are among the 
most popular of the modern stage. 



302 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

When he died, in January, 1873, ^^^^^ ^ short, painful ilhiess, Bulwer 
left three finished works, "The Coming Race," "The Parisians," and 
" Kenelm Chillingly," besides an uncompleted historical romance entitled 
" Paiisanias, the Spartan." "These," says Professor Minto, "had freshness 
enough to be the'work of youth, and power enough to shame no veteran. 
The molding force whose operation is traced in ' The Parisians,' is the 
society of imperial and democratic France; in 'Chillingly,' the society of 
England in relation to its representative institutions. The leading purpose 
is kept well in view throughout both works, and the tendencies to corrup- 
tion analyzed and presented with admirable skill. These last works show 
no falling off of power ; he is as vviid as ever in description, as fertile as 
ever in the invention of humorous and melodramatic situation. . . . The 
fact that in the fiftieth year of his authorship, after publishing at least fifty 
separate works, most of them popular, Bulwer had still vigor and freshness 
enough to make a new anonymous reputation with ' The Coming Race,' 
would seem to indicate that critics had not fairly gauged his versatility. . . . 
His freshness of thought, brilliancy of invention, breadth and variety of 
portraiture, gave him a just title to his popularity ; and, with all allowance 
for superficial affectations, his generous nobility of sentiment made his 
influence as wholesome as it was widespread." 



ON REVOLUTION! 

"My dear boy," cried Riccabocca, kindly, " the only thing sure 
and tangible to which these writers would lead you lies at the 
first step, and that is what is commonly called a Revolution. 
Now, I know what that is. I have gone, not indeed through 
a revolution, but an attempt at one." 

Leonard raised his eyes towards his master with a look of 
profound respect and great curiosity. 

''Yes," added Riccabocca, and the face on which the boy 
gazed exchanged its usual grotesque and sardonic expression 
for one animated, noble, and heroic. "Yes, not a revolution 
for chimeras/ but for that cause which the coldest allow to be 
good, and which, when successful, all time approves as divine, — 



1 from " My Novel " ^ foolish fancies 



BULGER 



303 



the redemption of our native soil from the rule of the foreigner ! 
I have shared in such an attempt. And," continued the Italian, 
mournfully, " recalling now all the evil passions it arouses, all the 
ties it dissolves, all the blood that it commands to flow, all the 
healthful industry it arrests, all the madmen that it arms, all 
the victims that it dupes, I question whether one man really 
honest, pure, and humane, who has once gone through such an 
ordeal, would ever hazard it again, unless he was assured that the 
victory was certain, — ay, and the object for which he fights not 
to be wrested from his hands amidst the uproar of the elements 
that the battle has released." 

The Italian paused, shaded his brow with his hand, and 
remained long silent. Then, gradually resuming his ordinary 
tone, he continued : — 

" Revolutions that have no definite objects made clear by the 
positive experience of history, — revolutions, in a word, that aim 
less at substituting one law or one dynasty for another, than at 
changing the whole scheme of society, have been little attempted 
by real statesmen. Even Lycurgus ^ is proved to be a myth who 
never existed. Such organic changes are but in the day-dreams 
of philosophers who lived apart from the actual world, and 
whose opinions (though generally they were very benevolent, 
good sort of men, and wrote in an elegant, poetical style) one 
would no more take on a plain matter of life than one would 
look upon Virgil's Eclogues as a faithful picture of the ordinary 
pains and pleasures of the peasants w^ho tend our sheep. Read 
them as you would read poets, and they are delightful. But 
attempt to shape the world according to the poetry, and fit 
yourself for a madhouse. The farther off the age is from the 
realization of such projects, the more these poor philosophers 
have indulged them. Thus, it was amidst the saddest corruption 
of court manners that it became the fashion in Paris to sit for 
one's picture with a crook in one's hand, as Alexis or Daphne. 
Just as liberty was fast dying out of Greece, and the successors 

1 the Spartan lawgiver, supposed to have lived about 850 b. c. 



304 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

of Alexander were founding their monarchies, and Rome was 
growing up to crush in its iron grasp all states save its own, Plato 
withdraws his eyes from the world, to open them in his dreamy 
Atlantis.-^ Just in the grimmest period of Enghsh history, with 
the ax hanging over his head, Sir Thomas More gives you his 
Utopia.^ Just when the world is to be the theater of a new 
Sesostris,^ the sages of France tell you that the age is too enlight- 
ened for war, that man is henceforth to be governed by pure rea- 
son and live in a paradise. Very pretty reading all this to a man 
like me, Lenny, who can admire and smile at it. But to you, to 
the man who has to work for his living, to the man who thinks 
it would be so much more pleasant to live at his ease in a phalan- 
stery* than to work eight or ten hours a day; to the man of 
talent and action and industry, whose future is invested in that 
tranquillity and order of a state in which talent and action and 
industry are a certain capital, — why, the great bankers had better 
encourage a theory to upset the system of banking ! Whatever 
disturbs society, yea, even by a causeless panic, much more by 
an actual struggle, falls first upon the market of labor, and thence 
affects prejudicially every department of intelligence. In such 
times the arts are arrested, Hterature is neglected, people are 
too busy to read anything save appeals to their passions. And 
capital, shaken in its sense of security, no longer ventures boldly 
through the land, calling forth all the energies of toil and enter- 
prise, and extending to every workman his reward. Now, Lenny, 
take this piece of advice. You are young, clever, and aspiring : 
men rarely succeed in changing the world ; but a man seldom 
fails of success if he lets the world alone, and resolves to make 
the best of it. You are in the midst of the great crisis of your 
life ; it is the struggle between the new desires knowledge ex- 



1 Plato's idea of a perfect state is unfolded in the " Laws " and the 
" Republic." Atlantis \Yas a fabled great island of the west, referred to by 
Plato, Pliny, and others. 

2 See pages 13 and 399. 

^ a supposed king of Egypt, who conquered the whole world 

^ a community of socialists, as proposed by Fourier {stt phalanx) 



BU LIVER 305 

cites, and that sense of poverty which those desires convert 
either into hope and emulation, or into envy and despair. I 
grant that it is an up-hill work that lies before you ; but don't 
you think it is always easier to climb a mountain than it is to 
level it ? These books call on you to level the mountain ; and 
that mountain is the property of other people, subdivided 
amongst a great many proprietors and protected by law. At 
the first stroke of the pickax it is ten to one but what you are 
taken up for a trespass. But the path up the mountain is a 
right of way uncontested. You may be safe at the summit 
before (even if the owners are fools enough to let you) you 
could have leveled a yard. It is more than twa thousand years 
ago," quoth the doctor, '' since poor Plato began to level it, and 
the mountain is as high as ever ! " 

Thus saying, Riccabocca came to the end of his pipe, and 
stalking thoughtfully away, left Leonard Fairfield trying to ex- 
tract light from the smoke. 



THE SURRENDER OF GRENADA 1 

Day dawned upon Grenada, and the beams of the winter sun, 
smiling away the clouds of the past night, played cheerily upon 
the murmuring waves of the Xenil and the Darro. Alone upon 
a balcony commanding a view of the beautiful landscape, stood 
Boabdil,^ the last of the Moorish kings. He had sought to bring 
to his aid all the lessons of the philosophy he had so ardently 
cultivated. 

" What are we," said the musing prince, " that we should fill 
the earth with ourselves, — we kings ! Earth resounds with the 

1 from " Leila " 

2 Boabdil, the last Moorish king of Grenada. Ferdinand of Aragon 
dethroned him, 1491. For nearly eight centuries the Moors had held pos- 
session of Grenada, which was the last province of the Peninsula recovered 
by the Christians. 

20 



306 CATHC/iRrS LITERARY READER 

crash of my falling throne ; on the ear of races unborn the echo 
will live prolonged. But what have I lost? Nothing that was 
necessary to my happiness, my repose ; nothing save the source 
of all my wretchedness, the Marah of my life ! Shall I less en- 
joy heaven and earth, or thought and action, or man's more 
material luxuries of food and sleep, — the common and cheap 
desires of all? At the worst, I sink but to a level with chiefs 
and princes; I am but leveled with those whom the multitude 
admire and envy. . . . But it is time to depart." So saying, he 
descended to the court, flung himself on his barb,i and, with a 
small and saddened train, passed through the gate which we yet 
survey, by a blackened and crumbling tower, overgrown with 
vines and ivy; thence, amid gardens, now appertaining to the 
convent of the victor faith, he took his mournful and unnoticed 
way. 

. When he came to the middle of the hill that rises above those 
gardens, the steel of the Spanish armor gleamed upon him as the 
detachment sent to occupy the palace marched over the summit 
in steady order and profound silence. At the head of the van- 
guard rode, upon a snow-white palfrey,^ the Bishop of Avila, 
followed by a long train of barefooted monks. They halted as 
Boabdil approached, and the grave bishop saluted him with the 
air of one who addresses an infidel and an inferior. With the 
quick sense of dignity common to the great, and yet more to 
the fallen, Boabdil felt, but resented not, the pride of the eccle- 
siastic. ''Go, Christian," said he, mildly; "the gates of the 
Alhambra are open, and Allah has bestowed the palace and 
the city upon your king. May his virtues atone the faults of 
Boabdil ! " So saying, and waiting no answer, he rode on, with- 
out looking to the right or the left. The Spaniards also pursued 
their way. 

The sun had fairly risen above the mountains, when Boabdil 
and his train beheld, from the eminence on which they were, the 
whole armament of Spain ; and at the same moment, louder than 

^ ba7'b, a Barbary horse 

2 Lat. paraveredjis, a saddle-horse for state occasions 



BU LIVER 307 

the tramp of horse or the clash of arms, was heard distinctly the 
solemn chant of Te Dei/m, which preceded the blaze of the un- 
furled and lofty standards. Boabdil, himself still silent, heard 
the groans and acclamations of his train ; he turned to cheer 
or chide them, and then saw, from his own watch-tower, with 
the sun shining full upon its pure and dazzling surface, the silver 
cross of Spain. His Alhambra was already in the hands of the 
foe ; while beside that badge of the holy war waved the gay and 
flaunting flag of Saint Jago, the canonized Mars of the chivalry of 
Spain. \t that sight the king's voice died within him; he gave 
the rein to his barb, impatient to close the fatal ceremonial, and 
slackened not his speed till almost within bowshot of the first 
rank of the army. 

Never had Christian war assumed a more splendid and impos- 
ing aspect. Far as the eye could reach extended the glittering 
and gorgeous lines of that goodly power, bristling with sun- 
lighted spears and blazoned banners ; while beside murmured 
and glowed and danced the silver and laughing Xenil, careless 
what lord should possess, for his little day, the banks that 
bloomed by its everlasting course. By a small mosque halted 
the flower of the army. Surrounded by the arch-priests of that 
mighty hierarchy, the peers and princes of a court that rivaled 
the Roland of Charlemagne, was seen the kingly form of Fer- 
dinand himself, with Isabel at his right hand, and the high-born 
dames of Spain, relieving, with their gay colors and sparkling 
gems, the sterner splendor of the crested helmet and polished 
mail. Within sight of the royal group, Boabdil halted, composed 
his aspect so as best to conceal his soul, and a Httle in advance 
of his scanty train, but never in mien and majesty more a king, 
the son of Abdallah met his haughty conqueror. 

At the sight of his princely countenance and golden hair, his 
comely and commanding beauty, made more touching by youth, 
a thrill of compassionate admiration ran through that assembly 
of the brave and fair. Ferdinand and Isabel slowly advanced 
to meet their late rival, — their new subject ; and as Boabdil 
would have dismounted, the Spanish king placed his hand upon 



3o8 CAT H CARTS LITERARY READER 

his shoulder. '' Brother and prince," said he, '•' forget thy sor- 
rows ; and may our friendship hereafter console thee for reverses 
against which thou hast contended as a hero and a king ; resist- 
ing man, but resigned at length to God." 

Boabdil did not affect to return this bitter but unintentional 
mockery of compliment. He bowed his head, and remained a 
moment silent; then motioning to his train, four of his officers 
approached, and, kneeling beside Ferdinand, proffered to him, 
upon a silver buckler, the keys of the city. "O king!" then 
said Boabdil, '' accept the keys of the last hold which has resisted 
the arms of Spain. The empire of the Moslem is no more. 
Thine are the city and the people of Grenada; yielding to thy 
prowess, they yet confide in thy mercy." 

"They do well," said the king; "our promises shall not be 
broken. But since we know the gallantry of Moorish cavaliers, 
not to us, but to gentler hands, shall the keys of Grenada be 
surrendered." 

Thus saying, Ferdinand gave the keys to Isabel, who would 
have addressed some soothing flatteries to Boabdil, but the 
emotion and excitement were too much for her compassionate 
heart, heroine and queen though she was ; and when she lifted 
her eyes upon the calm and pale features of the fallen monarch, 
the tears gushed from them irresistibly, and her voice died in 
murmurs. A faint flush overspread the features of Boabdil, and 
there was a momentary pause of embarrassment, which the ]\Ioor 
was the first to break. 

" Fair Queen," said he, with mournful and pathetic dignity, 
" thou canst read the heart that thy generous sympathy touches 
and subdues : this is my last, but not least glorious, conquest. 
But I detain ye ; let not my aspect cloud your triumph. 
Suffer me to say farewell." 

"Farewell, my brother," replied Ferdinand, "and may fair 
fortune go with you ! Forget the past ! " 

Boabdil smiled bitterly, saluted the royal pair with profound 
respect and silent reverence, and rode slowly on, leaving the 
army below, as he ascended the path that led to his new princi- 



BU LIVER 309 

pality beyond the Alpuxarras. As the trees snatched the Moorish 
cavalcade from the view of the king, Ferdinand ordered the army 
to recommence its march ; and trumpet and cymbal presently 
sent their music to the ear of the Moslem. 

Boabdil spurred on at full speed, till his panting charger halted 
at the little village where his mother, his slaves, and his faithful 
wife, Armine (sent on before), awaited him. Joining these, he 
proceeded without delay upon his melancholy path. They 
ascended that eminence which is the pass into the Alpuxarras. 
From its height, the vale, the rivers, the spires, and the towers 
of Grenada broke gloriously upon the view of the little band. 
They. halted mechanically and abruptly; every eye was turned 
to the beloved scene. The proud shame of baffled warriors, the 
tender memories of home, of childhood, of fatherland, swelled 
every heart, and gushed from every eye. 

Suddenly the distant boom of artillery broke from the citadel, 
and rolled along the sun-lighted valley and crystal river. A 
universal wail burst from the exiles ; it smote, it overpowered 
the heart of the ill-starred king, in vain seeking to wrap himself 
in Eastern pride or stoical philosophy. The tears gushed from 
his eyes, and he covered his face with his hands. The band 
wound slowly on through the solitary defiles ; and that place, 
where the king wept at the last view of his lost empire, is still 
called The Last Sigh of the Moor. 



310 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



MRS. BROWNING 

1809- 1 86 1 

Elizabeth Barrett was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1809, ^^^^ 
died at Florence in 1861. At the age of ten years she began to compose, 
and seven years later put forth her first volume, " An Essay on Mind, with 
other Poems." These juvenile productions did not warrant the expectation 
of such literary triumphs as she afterwards achieved. But these preliminary 







2(yziy^y7 



exercises were perhaps essential to the great and enduring work in which she 
was about to engage. This work is represented to the public by several vol- 
umes of poems, —issued between 1838 and the year of her death, — " The 
Seraphim," The " Romaunt of the Page," " The Drama of Exile," etc. In 
1846 Miss Barrett became the wife of Robert Browning. Although distinct- 
ively a poet Mrs. Browning was not merely a poet. Her scholarship was 
extensive and accurate, and some of her critical papers entitle her to high 
rank as a writer of prose. For several years the poets had their home in 
Italy, and Mrs. Browning, sympathizing ardently with the Italian heart in its 



MRS. BROWNING 31I 

struggles toward political independence, wrote many of her finest poems on 
Italian themes and inspired by Italian enthusiasm. Her last work of mag- 
nitude was " Aurora Leigh," — a long poem, in which she gave vehement, 
though somewhat mystical and obscure, expression to her opinions as to 
the mission of woman. 

" The poetry of this writer," says George Barnett Smith, " is distinguished 
for its emotional spirit; had her imagination equaled her capacity for feel- 
ing, she might have taken rank with the highest of our poets. Sensibility and 
intuition, those endowments of supreme importance to writers of genius, 
whose greatness is to grow in proportion to their understandings and inter- 
pretation of human life, were in her united in a degree seldom witnessed. 
To her it was not always necessary to understand the wrong which she 
beheld ; she saw it and hated it, and she has helped men by her writings to 
do something towards making an end of it. ' The Cry of the Children ' 
is a striking illustration of her keen feeling and eloquent power as a philan- 
thropist. . . . Her poetry is that which refines, chastens, and elevates. Much 
of it is imperishable ; and although she did not reach the height of the few 
mighty singers of all time, she has shown us the possibility of the highest 
forms of the poetic art being within the scope of woman's genius." 



A DEAD ROSE 



O Rose ! who dares to name thee ? 
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet ; 
But barren and hard, and dry as stubble-wheat, 

Kept seven years in a drawer, — thy titles shame thee. 

The breeze that used to blow thee 
Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away 
An odor up the lane, to last all day, — 

If breathing now, unsweetened would forego thee. 

The sun that used to smite thee. 
And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn, 
Till beam appeared to bloom and flower to burn, — 

If shining now, with not a hue would light thee. 



312 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

The dew that used to wet thee, 
And, white first, grew incarnadined/ because 
It lay upon thee where the crimson was, — 

If dropping now, would darken where it met thee. 

The fly that lit upon thee. 
To stretch the tendrils of its tiny feet 
Along the leafs pure edges after heat, — 

If lighting now, would coldly overrun thee. 

The bee that once did suck thee, 
And build thy perfumed ambers up his hive, 
And swoon in thee for joy, till scarce alive, — 

If passing now, would blindly overlook thee. 

The heart doth recognize thee. 
Alone, alone ! The heart doth smell thee sweet, 
Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete, — 

Though seeing now those changes that disguise thee. 

Yes, and the heart doth owe thee 
More love, dead rose ! than to such roses bold 
As Julia wears at dances, smiling cold ! — 

Lie still upon this heart, which breaks below thee ! 



SLEEP 



Of all the thoughts of God that are 
Borne inward unto souls afar. 
Along the Psalmist's music deep. 
Now tell me if that any is 
For gift or grace surpassing this, — 
" He giveth his beloved sleep ? " ^ 



carnation-colored, crimson ^ Psalm cxvii. 2 



MRS. BROIVNING 313 

What would we give to our belov'd ? 
The hero's heart, to be unmoved, — 
The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep, — 
The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse, — 
The monarch's crown, to Hght the brows? 
" He giveth his beloved sleep." 

What do we give to our belov'd? 
A httle faith, all undisproved, — 
A little dust to overweep, — 
And bitter memories, to make 
The whole earth blasted for our sake ; 
" He giveth his beloved sleep." 

" Sleep soft, belov'd ! " we sometimes say, 

But have no tune to charm away 

Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep ; 

But never doleful dream again 

Shall break the happy slumber when 

^' He giveth his beloved sleep." 

O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
O men, with wailing in your voices ! 
O delved gold the wallers heap ! 
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
God strikes a silence through you all, 
And '^giveth his beloved sleep." 

His dews drop mutely on the hill. 
His cloud above it saileth still. 
Though on its slope men sow and reap ; 
More softly than the dew is shed, 
Or cloud is floated overhead, 
" He giveth his beloved sleep." 

For me, my heart, that erst did go 
Most like a tired child at a show, 



314 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

That sees through tears the jugglers leap, 
Would now its wearied vision close, 
Would childlike on his love repose 
Who "giveth his beloved sleep." 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN i 

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 

Ere the sorrow comes with years? 
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, 

And that can not stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows. 

The young birds are chirping in the nest, 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 

The young flowers are blowing towards the west ; 
But the young, young children, O my brothers. 

They are weeping bitterly ! — 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 

In the country of the free. 

And well may the children weep before you ! 

They are weary ere they run ; 
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory 

Which is brighter than the sun : 
They know the grief of man, without his wisdom ; ^ 
They sink in man's despair, without his calm, — 
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, — 

Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm, — 
Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly 

The blessings of its memory can not keep, — 
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly : 

Let them weep ! let them weep ! 



1 from a poem on the factory children of England 

2 Note the fine series of antitheses here begun. 



LONGFELLOW 315 

LONGFELLOW 

1807-1882 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807, 
and died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., March 24th, 1882. He grad- 
uated from Bowdoin College in the class of 1825, of which Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne and Franklin Pierce were members. The next year he was appointed 
Professor of Modern Languages in this institution, and in 1835 was elected 
to the chair of Belles-Lettres in Harvard University, which position he held 
for many years, finally resigning it in order that he might give his attention 




wholly to literature. Between these two dates he spent much time in 
Europe in the studv of modern languages and literature Longfellow s 
poetry is distinguished by refinement and grace rather than by vigor of 
thought or expression. His sympathies were quick and strong; and this 
fact, together with the directness and simplicity of his verse, accounts 
mainly for the popularity of his writings, not only in this country, but in 
England also. He was an accomplished student of foreign literature, and 
translated many poems from the Spanish, German, and Scandinavian lan- 
guages into his own graceful measures. He was one of the most mfluential 
founders of American literature, as well as one of its brightest ornaments. 

George William Curtis thus speaks of the poet: "While the magnetism 
of Longfellow's touch lies in the broad humanity of his sympathy, which 



3l6 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

leads him neither to mysticism nor cynicism, and which commends his 
poetry to the universal heart, his artistic sense is so exquisite that each of 
his poems is a valuable literary study. The literary style of an intellect- 
ually introverted age or author will always be somewhat obscure, however 
gorgeous ; but Longfellow's mind takes a simple, childlike hold of life, and 
his style never betrays the inadequate effort to describe thoughts or emo- 
tions that are but vaguely perceived, — which is the characteristic of the 
best sensational writing. Indeed, there is little poetry by the eminent con- 
temporary masters which is so ripe and racy as his. He does not make 
rhetoric stand for passion, nor vagueness for profundity. His literary 
scholarship also, his delightful familiarity with the pure literature of all 
languages and times, must rank Longfellow among the learned poets. Yet 
he wears this various knowledge like a shining suit of chain-mail to adorn 
and strengthen his gait, like Milton, instead of tripping and clumsily stumb- 
ling in it, as Ben Jonsoii sometimes did. He whips out an exquisitely 
pointed allusion that flashes like a Damascus rapier, and strikes nimbly 
home ; or he recounts some weird tradition, or enriches his line with some 
gorgeous illustration from hidden stores ; or merely unrolls, as Milton loved 
to do, the vast perspective of romantic association by recounting, in meas- 
ured order, names which themselves make music in the mind, — names not 
musical only, but fragrant, — 

" ' Sabean odors from the spicy shore 
Of Araby the Blest.' " 



THE WRECK OF THE "HESPERUS" 

It was the schooner " Hesperus " 

That sailed the wintry sea ; 
And the skipper had taken his little daughter 

To bear him company. 

Blue were her eyes as the fairy- flax, 
Her cheeks like the dawn of day, 

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds 
That ope in the month of May. 

The skipper he stood beside the helm, 

His pipe was in his mouth, 
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow 

The smoke, now west, now south. 



LONGFELLOIV 317 

Then up and spake an old sailor, 

Had sailed the Spanish Main/ 
" I pray thee put into yonder port, 

For I fear a hurricane. 



'' Last night the moon had a golden ring, 

And to-night no moon we see ! " 
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, 

And a scornful laugh laughed he. 

Colder and louder blew the wind, 

A gale from the northeast ; 
The snow fell hissing in the brine. 

And the billows frothed like yeast. 

Down came the storm, and smote amain 

The vessel in its strength ; 
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, 

Then leaped her cable's length. 

" Come hither ! come hither ! my little daughter. 

And do not tremble so : 

« 

For I can weather the roughest gale 
That ever wind did blow." 

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat 

Against the stinging blast ; 
He cut a rope from a broken spar. 

And bound her to the mast. 

" O father ! I hear the church-bells ring, 

O say what may it be? " 
'' 'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast ! " 

And he steered for the open sea. 

1 Main, the great, or main, sea, as distinguished from its arms 



3l8 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

" O father ! I hear the sound of guns, 

O say what may it be? " 
" Some ship in distress, that can not live 

In such an angry sea ! " 

" O father ! I see a gleaming light, 
O say what may it be ? " 
But the father answered never a word, — 
A frozen corpse was he. 

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, 
With his face turned to the skies, 

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow 
On his fixed and glassy eyes. 

Then the maiden clasped her hands, and prayed 

That saved she might be ; 
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave 

On the Lake of Galilee. 

And fast through the midnight dark and drear. 
Through the whistling sleet and snow. 

Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept 
Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.^ 

And ever the fitful gusts between 

A sound came from the land ; 
It was the sound of the trampling surf 

On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. 

The breakers were right beneath her bows, 

She drifted a dreary wreck ; 
And a whooping billow swept the crew 

Like icicles from her deck. 

1 a reef off the coast of Massachusetts 



LONGFELLOIV 319 

She struck where the white and fleecy waves 

Looked soft as carded wool ; 
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side 

Like the horns of an angry bull. 

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, 

With the masts went by the board ; 
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, 

" Ho ! ho ! " the breakers roared ! 

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, 

A fisherman stood aghast, 
To see the form of a maiden fair 

Lashed close to a drifting mast. 

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, 

The salt tears in her eyes ; 
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, 

On the billows fall and rise. 

Such was the wreck of the '' Hesperus," 

In the midnight and the snow ! 
Christ save us all from a death like this, 

On the reef of Norman's Woe ! 



THE SHIP OF STATE 

Thou too sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity, with all its fears. 
With all the hopes of future years. 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 



320 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Who made each mast, and sail, and ropCj, 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 

In what a forge and what a heat 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope 1 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, — 

'T is of the wave and not the rock ; 

'T is but the flapping of the sail. 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock, and tempest's roar. 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee ; 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! 



DISASTER 



Never stoops the soaring vulture 
On his quarry ^ in the desert. 
On the sick or wounded bison, 
But another vulture, watching 
From his high aerial lookout. 
Sees the downward plunge, and follows ; 
And a third pursues the second. 
Coming from the invisible ether. 
First a speck, and then a vulture. 
Till the air is dark with pinions. 
So ^ disasters come not singly ; 
But as if they watched and waited, 
Scanning one another's motions ; 



1 prey 

2 Note the nice correspondence of parts in the whole of this fine com- 
parison. 



LONGFELLOM/ 321 

When the first descends, the others 
Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise 
Round their victim, sick and wounded, 
First a shadow, then a sorrow. 
Till the air is dark with anguish. 



THE LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP 

All is finished ! and at length 

Has come the bridal day 

Of beauty and of strength. 

To-day the vessel shall be launched ! 

With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, 

And o'er the bay, 

Slowly, in all his splendors dight,i 

The great Sun rises to behold the sight. 

The Ocean old, 

Centuries old. 

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, 

Paces restless to and fro, 

Up and down the sands of gold. 

His beating heart is not at rest ; 

And far and wide. 

With ceaseless flow. 

His beard of snow 

Heaves with the heaving of his breast. 

He waits, impatient, for his bride. 
There she stands. 
With her foot upon the sands, 
Decked with flags and streamers gay. 
In honor of her marriage day, 



1 arrayed ; the verb is archaic : compare Milton's " The clouds in thou- 
sand liveries dight." 



322 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

Her snow-white signals, fluttering, blending. 
Round her like a veil descending, 
Ready to be 
The bride of the gray old Sea. 

Then the master, 

With a gesture of command, 

Waved his hand ; 

And at the word. 

Loud and sudden there was heard. 

All around them and below. 

The sound of hammers, blow on blow. 

Knocking away the shores ^ and spurs. 

And see ! she stirs ! 

She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel 

The thrill of life along her keel, 

And, spurning with her foot the ground. 

With one exulting, joyous bound, 

She leaps into the Ocean's arms ! 



THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 

Under a spreading chestnut-tree 
The village smithy stands ; 

The smith, a mighty man is he. 
With large and sinewy hands ; 

And the muscles of his brawny arms 
Are strong as iron bands. 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long, 

His face is like the tan ; 
His brow is wet with honest sweat. 

He earns whate'er he can. 



props 



LONGFELLOIV 3^3 

And looks the whole world in the face, 
For he owes not any man. 

Week in, week out, from morn till night, 

You can hear his bellows blow ; 
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge. 

With measured beat and slow, 
Like a sexton ringing the village bell, 

When the evening sun is low. 

And children coming home from school 

Look in at the open door ; 
They love to see the flaming forge. 

And hear the bellows roar, 
And catch the burning sparks that fly 

Like chafl" from a threshing-floor. 

He goes on Sunday to the church. 

And sits among his boys ; 
He hears the parson pray and preach, 

He hears his daughter's voice 
Singing in the village choir, 

And it makes his heart rejoice. 

It sounds to him like her mother's voice. 

Singing in Paradise ! 
He needs must think of her once more. 

How in the grave she lies ; 
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 

A tear out of his eyes. 

Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing. 

Onward through life he goes ; 
Each morning sees some task begin, 

Each evening sees it close ; 
Something attempted, something done, 

Has earned a night's repose. 



324 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, 
For the lesson thou hast taught I 

Thus at the flaming forge of Hfe 
Our fortunes must be wrought ; 

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 
Each burning deed and thought ! 



A NORTHLAND PICTURE 

There is something patriarchal still ^ lingering about rural Hfe 
in Sweden, which renders it a fit theme for song. Almost prime- 
val simplicity reigns over that Northern land, — almost primeval 
solitude and stillness. You pass out from the gate of the city, 
and, as if by magic, the scene changes to a wild, woodland land- 
scape. Around you are forests of fir. Overhead hang the long, 
fan-like branches, trailing with moss, and heavy with red and 
blue cones. Under foot is a carpet of yellow leaves; and the 
air is warm and balmy. On a wooden bridge you cross a little 
silver stream ; and anon come forth into a pleasant and sunny 
land of farms. Wooden fences divide the adjoining fields. 
Across the road are gates, which are opened by troops of chil- 
dren. The peasants take off their hats as you pass ; you sneeze, 
and they cry, "God bless you." The houses in the villages and 
smaller towns are all built of hewn timber, and for the most part 
painted red. The floors of the taverns are strewn with the fra- 
grant tips of fir-boughs. In many villages there are no taverns, 
and the peasants take turns in receiving travelers. The thrifty 
housewife shows you into the best chamber, — the walls of which 
are hung round with rude pictures from the Bible, — and brings 
you her heavy silver spoons, — an heirloom, — to dip the curdled 
milk from the pan. You have oaten cakes baked some months 

1 This sketch was written in 1835, ^^ a preface to some translations of 
Swedish verse. The piece has the prose form, but it is the prose of a poet 
and interpreter of Nature. 



LONGFELLOIV 325 

before ; or bread with anise-seed and coriander in it, or perhaps 
a Httle pine bark. 

Meanwhile the sturdy husband has brought his horses from the 
plow, and harnessed them to your carriage. Solitary travelers 
come and go in uncouth one-horse chaises. Most of them have 
pipes in their mouths, and hanging around their necks in front a 
leather wallet, in which they carry tobacco and the great bank- 
notes of the country, as large as your two hands. You meet, 
also, groups of peasant women, traveling homeward or town- 
ward in pursuit of work. They walk barefoot, carrying in their 
hands their shoes, which have high heels under the hollow of the 
foot, and soles of birch bark. . . . 

In the churchyard are a few flowers, and much green grass ; 
and daily the shadow of the church-spire, with its long, tapering 
finger, counts the tombs, representing a dial-plate of human life, 
on which the hours and minutes are the graves of men.^ The 
stones are flat and large and low, and perhaps sunken, like the 
roofs of old houses. On some are armorial bearings ; '^ on others 
only the initials of the poor tenants, with a date, as on the roofs 
of Dutch cottages. They aU sleep with their heads to the west- 
ward. Each held a lighted taper in his hand when he died ; and 
in his coffin were placed his little heart- treasures, and a piece of 
money for his last journey. Babes that came lifeless into the 
world were carried in the arms of gray-haired old men to the 
only cradle they ever slept in ; and in the shroud of the dead 
mother were laid the little garments of the child that lived and 
died in her bosom. And over this scene the village pastor looks 
from his window in the stillness of midnight, and says in his 
heart, " How quietly they rest, all the departed I " 

Near the church-yard gate stands a poor-box, fastened to a 
post by iron bands and secured by a padlock, with a sloping 
wooden roof to keep off the rain. If it be Sunday, the peasants 
sit on the church-steps and con their psalm-books. Others are 

1 shadow . . . me?i. In this beautiful fancy, which gives so much ideality 
to what was commonplace before, the poet is plainly disclosed to us, 
^ heraldic emblems 



326 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

coming down the road with their beloved pastor, who talks to 
them of holy things from beneath his broad-brimmed hat. . . . 
The women carry psalm-books in their hands, wrapped in silk 
handkerchiefs, and listen devoutly to the good man's words. But 
the young men, like Gallio,^ care for none of these things. They 
are busy counting the plaits in the kirtles of the peasant girls, 
their number being an indication of the wearer's wealth. It may 
end in a wedding. . . . 

Nor must I forget the suddenly changing seasons of the 
Northern clime. There is no long and lingering spring, unfold- 
ing leaf and blossom one by one ; no long and lingering 
autumn, pompous with many-colored leaves and the glow of 
Indian summers. But winter and summer are wonderful, and 
pass into each other. The quail has hardly ceased piping in 
the corn, when winter from the folds of trailing clouds sows 
broadcast over the land snow, icicles, and rattling hail. The 
days wane apace. Ere long the sun hardly rises above the 
horizon, or does not rise at all. The moon and the stars shine 
through the day ; only, at noon, they are pale and wan, and 
in the southern sky a red, fiery glow, as of sunset, burns along 
the horizon, and then goes out. And pleasantly under the silver 
moon, and under the silent, solemn stars, ring the steel shoes 
of the skaters on the frozen sea, and voices, and the sound of 
bells. 

And now the Northern Lights begin to burn, faintly at first, 
like sunbeams playing in the waters of the blue sea. Then a 
soft crimson glow tinges the heavens. There is a blush on the 
cheek of night. The colors come and go; and change from 
crimson to gold, from gold to crimson. The snow is stained 
with rosy light. Twofold from the zenith, east and west, flames 
a fiery sword ; and a broad band passes athwart the heavens 
like a summer sunset. Soft purple clouds come sailing over 
the sky, and through their vapory folds the winking stars shine 
white as silver. With such pomp as this is Merry Christmas 
ushered in, though only a single star heralded the first Christmas. 

1 Acts xviii. 17 



LONGFELLOW 327 

And ill memory of that day the Swedish peasants dance on 
straw; and the peasant girls throw straw^s at the timbered roof 
of the hall, and for every one that sticks in a crack shall a 
groomsman come to their wedding. Merry Christmas, indeed ! 
For pious souls there shall be church songs and sermons ; but for 
Swedish peasants, brandy and nut-brown ale in wooden bowls, 
and the great Yule-cake ^ crowned with a cheese, and garlanded 
with apples, and upholding a three-armed candlestick over the 
Christmas feast. . . . 

And now the glad, leafy midsummer, full of blossoms and the 
song of nightingales, is come ; and in ev'ery village there is a 
May-pole fifty feet high, with wreaths and roses and ribands 
streaming in the wind, and a noisy weathercock on top, to tell 
the village whence the wund cometh, and whither it goeth. The 
sun does not set till ten o'clock at night ; and the children are 
at play in the streets an hour later. The windows and doors 
are all open, and you may sit and read till midnight without a 
candle. O how beautiful is the summer night, which is not 
night, but a sunless yet unclouded day, descending upon earth 
with dews, and shadows, and refreshing coolness ! How beau- 
tiful the long, mild twilight, which like a silver clasp unites to-day 
with yesterday ! How beautiful the silent hour, when Morning 
and Evening thus sit together, hand in hand, beneath the starless 
sky of midnight ! From the church -tower in the public square 
the bell tolls the hour, with a soft, musical chime ; and the 
watchman, whose watch-tower is the belfry, blow^s a blast in his 
horn for each stroke of the hammer, and four times, to the four 
corners of the heavens, in a sonorous voice he chants, — 

" Ho ! watchman, ho ! 
Twelve is the clock ! 
God keep our town 
From fire and brand 
And hostile hand ! 
Twelve is the clock ! " 

1 Yiile, from Swedish Jul, " Christmas ; " compare, in Webster, the 
etymology oi jolly. 



328 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



WHITTIER 

1807- 

JOHN Greenleaf Whittier, the " Quaker poet," was born in Haverhill, 
Massachusetts, in 1807. His youth was spent at his native farmstead, where 
his educational opportunities were of the slenderest. He possessed a keen 
J appetite for knowledge, however, and the age of twenty-one found him edit- 
ing a newspaper at Boston, A year later he went to Hartford, to take 
charge of the Neiv England Weekly. In 1831 he returned to Haverhill, 




where he remained five years, serving the state as representative in the 
legislature through two terms. From boyhood he had been deeply inter- 
ested in the subject of slavery, and his convictions of the sinfulness of that 
institution were strengthened with his growth. He was an original member 
of the American Antislavery Society, and having been appointed one of its 
secretaries, he took up his residence at Philadelphia in 1836, and for four 
years wrote constantly for antislavery periodicals. In 1840 he established 
himself at Amesbury, Massachusetts, which has ever since been his home. 
His first volume, " Legends of New England, in Prose and Verse," was pub- 



U^HITTIER 329 

lished in 1831. This has been followed, at frequent intervals, by nearly 
thirty volumes, mostly of verse. During the civil war he poured forth a 
multitude of stirring lyrics, which helped not a little to sustain and energize 
public sentiment; and the literature of the antislavery struggle, from its 
beginning to its end, had in him an active and efficient contributor. 

Whittier's earlier poems deal largely with the colonial annals of New 
England, and some of the most interesting traditions of that region have 
been preserved for posterity in his graphic and vigorous lines. Two of 
Whittier's poems have enjoyed exceptional popularity, — "Maud Muller" 
and " Snow-bound;" the first tells the story of a universal experience; the 
second affords the most faithful and finished pictures of winter life in rural 
New England that have ever been drawn by a poet. No American poet is 
so free as Whittier from obligations to English writers; his poems show 
no evidence of appropriation, or of that assiduous study of masterpieces 
which generally entails some unconscious imitation of form. He is original 
and American. One principal charm of his poetry consists in its catholicity; 
he sings not of himself, but for humanity, and his voice is heeded as if it 
bore a special call to all who hear it. 



MAUD MULLER 

Maud Muller, on a summer's day, 
Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health. 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 
The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 

But, when she glanced to the far-off town, 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 
And a nameless longing filled her breast, — 

A wish, that she hardly dared to own, 
For something better than she had known. 



330 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

The Judge rode slowly down the lane, 
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 

He drew his bridle in the shade 

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, 

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed 
Through the meadows across the road. 

She stooped where the cool stream bubbled up, 
And filled for him her small tin cup, 

And blushed as she gave it, looking down 
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 

"Thanks ! " said the Judge ; " a sweeter draught 
From a fairer hand was never quaffed." 

He spoke of the grass, and flowers, and trees, 
Of the singing birds and the humming bees ; 

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether 
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, 
And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; 

And listened, while a pleased surprise 
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 

At last, like one who for delay 
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 

Maud Muller looked and sighed : " Ah, me ! 
That I the Judge's bride might be ! 

*^ He would dress me up in silks so fine. 
And praise and toast me at his wine. 



IVHITTIER 331 

^' My father should wear a broadcloth coat ; 
My brother should sail a painted boat. 

" I 'd dress my mother so grand and gay, 
And the baby should have a new toy each day. 

'' And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, 
And all should bless me who left our door." 

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, 
And saw Maud Muller standing still. 

" A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. 

" And her modest answer and graceful air, 
Show her wise and good as she is fair. 

'' Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
Like her, a harvester of hay : 

" No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 

" But low of cattle and song of birds, 
And health and quiet and loving words." 

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold. 
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. 

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 
And Maud was left in the field alone. 

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon 

When he hummed in court an old love-tune ; 

And the young girl mused beside the well, 
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 



332 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
He watched a picture come and go : 

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
Looked out in their innocent surprise. 

Oft when the wine in his glass was red 
He longed for the wayside well instead ; 

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms. 
To dream of meadows and clover blooms. 

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 
" Ah, that I were free again ! 

" Free as when I rode that day. 

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 

She wedded a man unlearned and poor. 
And many children played round her door. 

But care and sorrow and childbirth pain 
Left their traces on heart and brain. 

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot 
On the new- mown hay in the meadow lot. 

And she heard the little spring brook fall 
Over the roadside, through the wall. 

In the shade of the apple-tree again 
She saw a rider draw his rein ; 

And, gazing down with timid grace. 
She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 



U/HITTIER 333 

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
Stretched away into stately halls ; 

The weary wheel to a spinet turned,^ 
The tallow candle an astral ^ burned, 

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,^ 
Dozing and grumbling o' er pipe and mug, 

A manly form at her side she saw, 
And joy was duty, and love was law. 

Then she took up her burden of life again, 
Saying only, " It might have been ! " 

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 

For rich repiner and household drudge ! 

God pity them both ! and pity us all, 
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 

For of all sad words of tongue or pen. 

The saddest are these : " It might have been ! " 

Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies, 
Deeply buried from human eyes ; 

And, in the hereafter, angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away ! 



1 The zueary . . . turned ; i. e. the spi7iJi2Jig-\\h.ee\ to a spinet, — a musical 
instrument 

2 astral, "star-like," — the name of a brilliant lamp 
^ chimney corner 



334 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

THE BAREFOOT BOY 

Blessings on thee, little man, 
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! 
With thy turned up pantaloons, 
And thy merry whistled tunes ; 
With thy red lip, redder still 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
With the sunshine on thy face, 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ; 
From my heart I give thee joy, — 
I was once a barefoot boy ! 
Prince thou art, — the grown-up man 
Only is republican. 
Let the million-dollared ride ! 
Barefoot, trudging at his side, 
Thou hast more than he can buy 
In the reach of ear and eye, — 
Outward sunshine, inward joy ; 
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy ! 

O for boyhood's painless play. 
Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 
Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
Knowledge, never learned of schools, 
Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
Of the wild-flowers' time and place, 
Flight of fowl and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood ; 
How the tortoise bears his shell, 
How the woodchuck digs his cell. 
And the ground-mole sinks his well ; 
How the robin feeds her young, 
How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow. 



IV HIT TIER 335 

Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; 
Of the black wasp's cunning way, 
Mason of his walls of clay. 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans ! — 
For, eschewing books and tasks, 
Nature answers all he asks ; 
Hand in hand with her he walks, 
Face to face with her he talks, 
Part and parcel of her joy, — 
Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 

O for boyhood's time of June, 
Crowding years in one brief moon, 
When all things I heard or saw. 
Me, their master, waited for. 
I was rich in flowers and trees. 
Humming-birds and honey-bees; 
For my sport the squirrel played. 
Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 
For my taste the blackberry cone 
Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
Laughed the brook for my delight 
Through the day and through the night. 
Whispering at the garden wall. 
Talked with me from fall to fall ; 
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 
Mine the walnut slopes beyond, 
Mine, on bending orchard trees. 
Apples of Hesperides ! ^ 
Still as my horizon grew, 
Larger grew my riches too ; 
All the world I saw or knew 

1 the fabled daughters of Hesperus, whose gardens yielded golden fruit 



336 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Seemed a complex Chinese toy 
Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! 

O for festal dainties spread. 
Like my bowl of milk and bread, — 
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, 
On the door-stone, gray and rude ! 
O'er me, like a regal tent. 
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent. 
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, 
Looped in many a wind- swung fold ; 
While for music came the play 
Of the pied ^ frogs' orchestra ; 
And, to light the noisy choir, 
Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
I was monarch : pomp and joy 
AVaited on the barefoot boy ! 

Cheerily, then, my little man, 
Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! 
Though the flinty slopes be hard. 
Stubble-speared the new- mown sward, 
Every morn shall lead thee through 
Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
Every evening from thy feet 
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat : 
All too soon these feet must hide 
In the prison cells of pride, 
Lose the freedom of the sod, 
Like a colt's for work be shod. 
Made to tread the mills of toil. 
Up and down in ceaseless moil : ^ 
Happy ^ if their track be found 
Never on forbidden ground ; 

1 spotted like the coat of a piper 2 grimy labor 

3 Expand this elliptical expression. 



IVHITTIER 337 



Happy if they sink not in 
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy 
Ere it passes, barefoot boy ! 



WINTER 



Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door, 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-hne back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up* its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed. 
The house-dog, on his paws outspread, 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head ; 
The cat's dark silhouette ^ on the wall 
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
And, for the winter fireside meet, 
Between the andirons' straddling feet. 
The mug of cider simmered slow. 
The apples sputtered in a row, 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood. 



Etymology? See Webster. 



22 



338 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



HOLMES 

1809- 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the wittiest and wisest of American 
writers, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1809, and graduated at 
Harvard University in 1829. He began the study of law ; but feeling a 
stronger bent toward the profession of medicine, applied himself zealously 
to preparation for its practice. In 1836, having spent several years in study 




^My^s^i"^^' 



abroad, he received his medical degree ; two years later was appointed to a 
professorship in the Dartmouth Medical School ; and in 1847 succeeded 
Dr. Warren as Professor of Anatomy in Harvard University. His first 
considerable literary effort was a poem delivered before the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society of Harvard in 1836. It received warm praise from com- 
petent critics, and its success undoubtedly confirmed his inclination for 
literary labors. The first edition of his collected poems was published in 
the same year, and many editions have followed it in this country and in 



HOLMES 339 

England. He confined his efforts in earlier years almost exclusively to 
long poems like "Urania" and "Astraea," — metrical essays, melodious, 
polished, and glittering with wit; but in later days he has been content to 
throw off short lyrics and "occasional pieces." 

The most conspicuous characteristic of HoUnes's verse is humor, of 
indescribable and rarely equaled delicacy and brilliancy. Several of his 
humorous poems, like the " One-Hoss Shay," have by common consent been 
elevated to the rank of classics in our American literature. Not less felici- 
tous has he been in a few pieces in which a fine pathos relieves the glow of 
his wit. He was one of the founders of the Atlantic Monthly, and in its 
first years was a regular contributor to its pages. For it he wrote *' The 
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," and later, "The Professor" and "The 
Poet at the Breakfast-Table," a series of papers which are unique in our 
literature, combining the rarest qualities of the light esSay, — freshness of 
thought, deftness of touch, keen but good-humored satire, and a pervading 
atmosphere of wit that keeps the reader in a state of continual exhilara- 
tion and expectancy. In his "Fable for Critics" Lowell had these lines 
upon Holmes : — 

There 's Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit, — 

A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from which flit 

The electrical tingles of hit after hit. 

His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric 

Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satiric 

In so kindly a measure that nobody knows 

What to do but just join in the laugh, friends and foes."' 



ON AMATEUR WRITERS 

If I were a literary Pope sending out an Encyclical,^ I would 
tell inexperienced persons that nothing is so frequent as to mis- 
take an ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary en- 
dowment. The mechanism of breathing and that of swallowing 
are very wonderful, and if one had seen and studied them in his 
own person only, he might well think himself a prodigy. Every- 
body knows these and other bodily faculties are common gifts ; but 
nobody except editors and school-teachers, and here and there a 
literary man, knows how common is the capacity of rhyming and 



1 a general letter 



340 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

prattling in readable prose, especially among young women of 
a certain degree of education. In my character of Pontiff, I 
should tell these young persons that most of them labored under 
a delusion. It is very hard to believe it ; one feels so full of in- 
telligence and so decidedly superior to one's dull relations and 
schoolmates ; one writes so easily, and the lines sound so prettily 
to one's self; there are such felicities of expression, just like 
those we hear quoted from the great poets ; and besides, one has 
been told by so many friends that all one had to do was to print 
and be famous ! Delusion, my poor dear, delusion at least nine- 
teen times out of twenty, — yes, ninety-nine times in a hundred. 

But as private father- confessor, I always allow as much as I 
can for the one chance in the hundred. I try not to take away 
all hope, unless the case is clearly desperate, and then to direct 
the activities into some other channel. 

Using kind language, I can talk pretty freely. I have coun- 
seled more than one aspirant after literary fame to go back to his 
tailor's board or his lapstone. I have advised the dilettanti^ 
whose foolish friends praised their verses or their stories, to give 
up all their deceptive dreams of making a name by their genius, 
and go to work in the study of a profession which asked only for 
the diligent use of average, ordinary talents. It is a very grave 
responsibility which these unknown correspondents throw upon 
their chosen counselors. One whom you have never seen, who 
lives in a community of which you know nothing, sends you 
specimens more or less painfully voluminous of his writings, which 
he asks you to read over, think over, and pray over, and send 
back an answer informing him whether fame and fortune are 
awaiting him as the possessor of the wonderful gifts his writings 
manifest, and whether you advise him to leave all, — the shop he 
sweeps out every morning, the ledger he posts, the mortar in 
which he pounds, the bench at which he urges the reluctant 
plane, — and follow his genius whithersoever it may lead him. 
The next correspondent wants you to mark out a whole course of 

i Italian ; literally, those who delight in the fine arts, — hence, amateurs 



HOLMES 341 

life for him, and the means of judgment he gives you are about 
as adequate as the brick which the simpleton of old carried round 
as an advertisement of the house he had to sell. My advice 
to all young men that write to me depends somewhat on the 
handwriting and spelling. If these are of a certain character, 
and they have reached a mature age, I recommend some honest 
manual calling, such as they have very probably been bred to, 
and which will at least give them a chance of becoming Presi- 
dent of the United States by and by, if that is any object to 
them. 

What would you have done with the young person who called 
on me a good many years ago, — so many that he has probably 
forgotten his literary effort, — and read as specimens of his lit- 
erary workmanship lines like those which I will favor you with 
presently? He was an able-bodied, grown-up young person, 
whose ingenuousness interested me ; and I am sure if I thought 
he would ever be pained to see his maiden effort in print, I would 
deny myself the pleasure of submitting it to the reader. The 
following is an exact transcript of the lines he showed me, and 
which I took down on the spot : — 

" Are you in the vein for cider ? 
Are you in the tune for pork ? 
Hist ! for Betty 's cleared the larder, 
And turned the pork to soap." 

Do not judge too hastily this sincere effort of a maiden Muse. 
Here was a sense of rhythm, and an effort in the direction of 
rhyme ; here was an honest transcript of an occurrence of daily 
life, told with a certain idealizing expression, recognizing the 
existence of impulses, mysterious instincts, impelling us even in 
the selection of our bodily sustenance. But I had to tell him 
that it wanted dignity of incident and grace of narrative, that 
there was no atmosphere to it, nothing of " the light that never 
was," and so forth.^ I did not say this in these very words, but I 

i An allusion to Wordsworth's lines : — 

" The light that never was, on sea or land, 
The consecration, and the poet's dream." 



342 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

gave him to understand, without being too hard upon him, that 
he had better not desert his honest toil in pursuit of the poet's 
bays.^ This, it must be confessed, was a rather discouraging 
case. A young person hke this may pierce, as the Frenchmen 
say, by and by, but the chances are all the other way. 

I advise aimless young men to choose some profession without 
needless delay, and so get into a good strong current of human 
affairs, and find themselves bound up in interests with a compact 
body of their fellow-men. 

I advise young women who write to me for counsel, — perhaps 
I do not advise them at all ; only sympathize a little with them, 
and listen to what they have to say (eight closely written pages 
on the average, which I always read from beginning to end, 
thinking of the widow's cruse, and myself in the character of 
Elijah),^ and — and — Come now, I don't believe Methuselah 
would tell you what he said in his letters to young ladies, written 
when he was in his nine hundred and sixty- ninth year. 

But, dear me ! how much work all this private criticism in- 
volves ! An editor has only to say '' respectfully declined," and 
there is the end of it. But the confidential adviser is expected 
to give the reasons of his likes and dislikes in detail, and some- 
times to enter into an argument for their support. That is 
more than any martyr can stand ; but what trials he must go 
through, as it is ! Great bundles of manuscripts, verse or prose, 
which the recipient is expected to read, perhaps to recommend 
to a publisher, at any rate to express a well-digested and agree- 
ably flavored opinion about; which opinion, nine times out of 
ten, disguise it as we may, has to be a bitter draught; every 
form of egotism, conceit, false sentiment, hunger for notoriety, 
and eagerness for display of anserine plumage ^ before the ad- 
miring public j — all these come in by mail or express, covered 
with postage-stamps of so much more cost than the value of the 
waste words they overlie, that one comes at last to groan and 
change color at the very sight of a package, and to dread the 

1 /. <?. a garland of laurel 2 j Kings xvii. 12 

2 miserine plumage , the plumes of a goose (Lat. anser) 



HOLMES 343 

postman's knock as if it were that of the other visitor whose 
naked knuckles rap at every door. 

Still, there are experiences which go far towards repaying all 
these inflictions. My last young man's case looked desperate 
enough ; some of his sails had blown from the rigging, some 
were backing in the wind, and some were flapping and shiver- 
ing. But I told him which way to head, and, to my surprise, he 
promised to do just as I directed. 

What if I should tell my last, my very recent, experience with 
the other sex? I received a paper containing the inner history 
of a young woman's life, the evolution of her consciousness from 
its earliest record of itself, written so thoughtfully, so sincerely, 
with so much firmness and yet so much delicacy, with such truth 
of detail and such grace in the manner of telling, that I finished 
the long manuscript almost at a sitting, with a pleasure rarely, 
almost never, experienced in voluminous communications which 
one has to spell out of handwriting. This was from a corre- 
spondent who made my acquaintance by letter when she was little 
more than a child, some years ago. How easy at that early 
period to have silenced her by indifference, to have wounded 
her by a careless epithet, perhaps even to have crushed her as 
one puts his heel on a weed ! A very little encouragement kept 
her from despondency, and brought back one of those overflows 
of gratitude which make one more ashamed of himself for being 
so overpaid, than he would be for having committed any of the 
lesser sins. But what pleased me most in the paper lately re- 
ceived was to see how far the writer had outgrown the need of 
any encouragement of mine ; that she had strengthened out of 
her tremulous questionings into a self-reliance and self-poise 
which I had hardly dared to anticipate for her. 

Some of my readers who are also writers have very probably 
had more numerous experiences of this kind than I can lay 
claim to, — self- revelations from unknown and sometimes name- 
less friends, who write from strange corners, where the winds 
have wafted some stray words of theirs which have lighted in 
the minds and reached the hearts of those to whom they were 



344 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

as the angel that stirred the pool of Bethesda. Perhaps this is 
the best reward authorship brings ; it may not imply much 
talent or literary excellence, but it means that your way of think- 
ing and feeling is just what some one of your fellow- creatures 
needed. 



I KNOW nothing in the world tenderer than the pity that a 
kind-hearted young girl has for a young man who feels lonely. 
It is true that these dear creatures are all compassion for every 
form of human woe, and anxious to alleviate all human mis- 
fortunes. They will go to Sunday-schools, through storms their 
brothers are afraid of, to teach the most unpleasant and intract- 
able classes of little children the age of Methuselah and the 
dimensions of Og the king of Bashan's bedstead. They will 
stand behind a table at a fair all day until they are ready to 
drop, dressed in their prettiest clothes and their sweetest smiles, 
and lay hands upon you, — to make you buy what you do not 
want, at prices which you can not afford ; all this as cheerfully 
as if it were not martyrdom to them as well as to you. Such 
is their love for all good objects, such their eagerness to sympa- 
thize with all their suffering fellow- creatures ! But there is noth- 
ing they pity as they pity a lonely young man. — From '' The 
Poet at the Breakfast-Table r 



When we are as yet small children there comes up to us a 
youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in 
his left spheres like marbles. The cubes are of stainless ivory, 
and on each is written in letters of gold, — Truth. The spheres 
are veined and streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark crim- 
son flush above, where the light falls on them, and in a certain 
aspect you can make out upon every one of them the three 
letters L, I, E. The child to whom they are offered very prob- 
ably clutches at both. The spheres are the most convenient 
things in the world; they roll with the least possible impulse 



HOLMES 345 

just where the child would have them. The cubes will not roll 
at all; they have a great talent for standing still, and always 
keep right side up. But very soon the young philosopher finds 
that things which roll so easily are very apt to roll into the wrong 
corner, and to get out of his way when he most wants them, 
while he always knows where to find the others, which stay where 
they are left. Thus he learns — thus we learn — to drop the 
streaked and speckled globes of falsehood and to hold fast the 
white angular blocks of truth. But then comes Timidity, and 
after her Good-nature, and last of all PoHte-behavior, all insist- 
ing that truth must roll, or nobody can do anything with it ; and 
so the first with her coarse rasp, and the second with her broad 
file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do so round off and 
smooth and polish the snow-white cubes of truth, that, when 
they have got a little dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them 
from the rolling spheres of falsehood. 

The schoolmistress was polite enough to say that she was 
pleased with this, and that she would read it to her Httle flock 
the next day. But she should tell the children, she said, that 
there were better reasons for truth than could be found in mere 
experience of its convenience, and the inconvenience of lying- — 
Fro?n " The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,^^ 



UNDER THE VIOLETS 

Her hands are cold ; her face is white ; 
No more her pulses come and go ; 

Her eyes are shut to life and light ; — 
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, 
And lay her where the violets blow. 

But not beneath a graven stone, 
To plead for tears with alien eyes ; 



346 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER. 

A slender cross of wood alone 
Shall say, that here a maiden lies 
In peace beneath the peaceful skies. 

And gray old trees of hugest limb 

Shall wheel their circling shadows round, 

To make the scorching sunlight dim 

That drinks the greenness from the ground, 
And drop their dead leaves on her mound. 

When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, 
And through their leaves the robins call. 

And, ripening in the autumn sun, 
The acorns and the chestnuts fall. 
Doubt not that she will heed them all. 

For her the morning choir shall sing 
Its matins from the branches high, 

And every minstrel-voice of spring, 
That trills beneath the April sky. 
Shall greet her with its earliest cry. 

When, turning round their dial-track. 
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass. 

Her little mourners, clad in black. 

The crickets, sliding through the grass, 
Shall pipe for her an evening mass. 

At last the rootlets of the trees 

Shall find the prison where she lies, 

And bear the buried dust they seize 
In leaves and blossoms to the skies. 
So may the soul that warmed it rise ! 

If any, born of kindlier blood. 

Should ask, *' What maiden lies below? '* 

Say only this : " A tender bud. 

That tried to blossom in the snow. 
Lies withered where the violets blow." 



TENNYSON 



347 



TENNYSON 

1810- 

Alfred (Baron) Tennyson, the first of living poets, was born in Lincoln- 
shire, England, in 1810. He is the youngest of three brothers, all of whom 
were educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and gave promise of intellect- 
ual greatness. Indeed, Wordsworth, estimating a volume of poems, pub- 
lished in 1829, the joint work of Charles and Alfred Tennyson, found the 







X 1 




^^ruhytf^i^^ 



contributions of Charles to be entitled to the higher praise. Alfred Tenny- 
son's first volume, " Poems, chiefly Lyrical," was published in 1830, and had 
a favorable reception, though there was nothing in it to foreshadow his later 
masterpieces. Two editions of Poems followed in 1832 and 1842. " The 
Princess," appearing in 1847, elicited various comment, though there was but 
one opinion among critics as to the delicacy and grace of its execution. 

In 1850 Tennyson gave to the world a work which quieted all doubts as to 
his title to the highest rank among contemporary poets, and which was uni- 



348 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

versally received as an ample warrant for his appointment to succeed Words- 
worth as Poet Laureate, — an appointment which was made in the same year. 
This was " In Memoriam," a lament for the poet's friend, Arthur Hallani. 
In it noble thoughts are conveyed in a guise of ideal beauty, in a combina- 
tion which has hardly been surpassed in our literature. " Maud," published 
in 1855, added nothing to the poet's fame ; and this must also be said of the 
many short poems from his pen which preceded the publication of " The 
Idyls of the King," in 1859. These poems are his masterpieces. They are, 
however, unequal in merit, the earlier Idyls being superior to their succes- 
sors. Yet to the mass of readers the Laureate is best known by his shorter 
pieces. Among these are " The Queen of the May," " Locksley Hall," 
" Lady Clara Vere de Vere," and the exquisite songs which are scattered 
through " The Princess." The charm of Tennyson's poetry lies mainly in 
his felicity of diction, in his choice and arrangement of words and adjust- 
ment of phrase and epithet. His influence upon the poetical spirit of our 
time has been very great, and to the purity of his Muse is largely due the 
comparative health of our poetical literature. 



THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE 

Half a league, half a league, 
Half a league onward. 
All in the valley of death 
Rode the Six Hundred. 
" Forward the Light Brigade ! 
Charge for the guns," he said ; 
Into the valley of death 
Rode the Six Hundred.^ 

'' Forward the Light Brigade ! " 
No man was there dismayed, 
Not though the soldiers knew 
Some one had blundered : 

1 The poem celebrates the great cavalry charge of the British at the battle 
of Balaklava, 25th October, 1854. 



TENNYSON 349 

Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die ; 
Into the valley of death 
Rode the Six Hundred. 

Cannon to right of them. 
Cannon to left of them. 
Cannon in front of them, 
Volleyed and thundered ; 
Stormed at with shot and shell. 
Boldly they rode and well, 
Into the jaws of death, 
Into the mouth of hell 
Rode the Six Hundred. 

Flashed all their sabers bare, 
Flashed as they turned in air, 
Sabring the gunners there, 
Charging an army, while 
All the world wondered : 
Plunged in the battery smoke, 
Right through the line they broke ; 
Cossack and Russian 
Reeled from the saber stroke 
Shattered and sundered : 
then they rode back, but not — 
Not the Six Hundred. 

Cannon to right of them. 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon behind them, 
Volleyed and thundered ; 
Stormed at with shot and shell, 
While horse and hero fell, 
They that had fought so well 



350 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Came through the jaws of death, 
Back from the mouth of hell, 
All that was left of them, 
Left of Six Hundred. 

When can their glory fade ? 
O, the wild charge they made ! 
All the world wondered. 
Honor the charge they made ; 
Honor the Light Brigade, 
Noble Six Hundred ! 



LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

Of me you shall not win renown : 
You thought to break a country heart 

For pastime, ere you went to town. 
At me you smiled, but unbeguiled 

I saw the snare, and I retired : 
The daughter of a hundred earls, 

You are not one to be desired. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

I know you proud to bear your name, 
Your pride is yet no mate for mine, 

Too proud to care from whence I came. 
Nor would I break for your sweet sake 

A heart that doats on truer charms. 
A simple maiden in her flower 

Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

Some meeker pupil you must find, 



, TENNYSON 351 

For were you queen of all that is, 

I could not stoop to such a mind. 
You sought to prove how I could love, 

And my disdain is my reply. 
The lion on your old stone gates 

Is not more cold to you than I. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

You put strange memories in my head. 
Not thrice your branching limes have blown 

Since I beheld young Laurence dead. 
O, your sweet eyes, your low replies ! 

A great enchantress you may be ; 
But there was that across his throat 

Which you had hardly cared to see. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

When thus he met his mother's view. 
She had the passions of her kind. 

She spake some certain truths of you. 
Indeed, I heard one bitter word 

That scarce is fit for you to hear ; 
Her manners had not that repose 

Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

There stands a specter in your hall : 
The guilt of blood is at your door : 

You changed a wholesome heart to gall. 
You held your course without remorse. 

To make him trust his modest worth, 
And, last, you fixed a vacant stare, 

And slew him with your noble birth. 

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 

From yon blue heavens above us bent 



352 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

The grand old gardener and his wife 
Smile at the claims of long descent. 

Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 
'T is only noble to be good. 

Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
And simple faith than Norman blood. 

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere : 

You pine among your halls and towers : 
The languid light of your proud eyes 

Is wearied of the rolling hours. 
In glowing health, with boundless wealth, 

But sickening of a vague disease, 
You know so ill to deal with time. 

You needs must play such pranks as these. 

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, 

If time be heavy on your hands, 
Are there no beggars at your gate, 

Nor any poor about your lands? 
O, teach the orphan boy to read, 

Or teach the orphan girl to sew ; 
Pray Heaven for a human heart. 

And let the foolish yeoman go. 



ARDEN SHIPWRECKED 1 

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 

And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, 

The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, 

The lightning flash of insect and of bird. 

The luster of the long convolvuluses 

That coiled around the stately stems, and ran 

1 from** Enoch Arden" 



TENNYSON 353 

Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows 
And glories of the broad belt of the world — 
All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen 
He could not see, the kindly human face, 
Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard 
The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, 
The league-long roller thundering on the reef, 
The moving whisper of huge trees that branched 
And blossomed in the zenith, or the sweep 
Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 
As down the shore he ranged, or all day long 
Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, 
A shipwrecked sailor, waiting for a sail : 

No sail from day to day, but every day 
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 
Among the palms and ferns and precipices ; 
The blaze upon the waters to the east ; 
The blaze upon his island overhead ; 
The blaze upon the waters to the west ; 
Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, 
The hollower- bellowing ocean, and again 
The scarlet shafts of sunrise, — but no sail. 



WIDOW AND CHILD 1 

Home they brought her warrior dead ; 

She nor swooned, nor uttered cry. 
All her maidens, watching, said 

" She must weep, or she will die." 

Then they praised him, soft and low ; 

Called him worthy to be loved : 
Truest friend and noblest foe. 

Yet she neither spake nor moved. 



1 from " The Princess " 
23 



354 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Stole a maiden from her place, 
Lightly to the warrior stept, 

Took the face-cloth from the face ; 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
Set his child upon her knee. 

Like summer tempest came her tears : 
'* Sweet my child, I live for thee ! " 



THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE 

Tears, idle tears ! I know not what they mean 
Tears, from the depth of some divine despair, 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes. 
In looking on the happy autumn fields. 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail 
That brings our friends up from the under-world ; 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge : 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

Ah ! sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square : 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

Dear as remembered kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned 
On lips that are for others — deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret : 
O death in life ! the days that are no more. 



POE 



355 



POE 



1811-1849 

Edgar Allan Poe, the most brilliant of tiie early American poets, was 
born in Boston in 181 1. On the death of his parents, who were members of 
the theatrical profession, he was adopted by a merchant of Richmond and 
sent to school. In 1822 he entered the University of Virginia ; but his habits 




fSk^^^if 



^^^OA^J^^yo^ 



were such as to compel his expulsion. His foster-father refusing young Poe's 
demands for money, the latter resolved to go, like Byron, to the aid of the 
struggling Greeks. He went to Europe, only to be sent home by the United 
States Consul at St. Petersburg. His benefactor next procured him an 
appointment to West Point; but young Poe could not endure the strict 
discipline of cadet-life, and in less than a year he was dismissed. Again 
he was received at the house of his foster-father ; but his stay, this time, 
was short : for some offense whose nature has never been clearly explained, 
he was shut out forever from the house that had been his only home. 



356 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

In 1829 a small collection of his poems had been published in Baltimore, 
and received with some favor ; but his early literary work had little per- 
manent value. In 1839 he went to New York, where he wrote for newspa- 
pers and magazines, and in 1840 to Philadelphia, where he edited Grahani's 
Magazine. Returning to the metropolis, he engaged in miscellaneous liter- 
ary labors, contributing his most famous poem, "The Raven," to The 
American Review, in February, 1845. He died October 7, 1849. 

Although Poe is best known as a poet, many critics agree that he was even 
greater as a writer of tales. His imagination was exceptionally powerful, 
his love of the weird and marvelous was very strong, and his skill in pro- 
ducing somber and uncanny effects was extraordinary. As a critic he was 
remarkable mainly for his violent prejudices, and his " Literati of New 
York City," though spicy reading, gives no evidence of real critical power. 
Two or three of his poems, " The Raven," " The Bells," and " Annabel Lee," 
will always be read and admired. 



ANNABEL LEE 



It was many and many a year ago, 

In a kingdom by the sea, 
That a maiden there lived, whom you may know 

By the name of Annabel Lee ; 
And this maiden she l!ved with no other thought 

Than to love, and be loved by me. 

I was a child, and she was a child. 

In this kingdom by the sea ; 
But we loved with a love that was more than love, 

I and my Annabel Lee, — 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 

Coveted her and me. 

And this was the reason that long ago. 

In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 

My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
So that her high-born kinsmen came. 

And bore her away from me, 



PO^ 357 

To shut her up in a sepulcher. 
In this kingdom by the sea. 

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, 

Went envying her and me. 
Yes ! that was the reason (as all men know, 

In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love 

Of those who were older than we, 

Of many far wiser than we ; 
And neither the angels in heaven above, 

Nor the demons down under the sea. 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, 

In the sepulcher there by the sea, 

In her tomb by the sounding sea. 



FROM THE RAVEN 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary. 
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, — 
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 
'^ 'T is some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber door ; 
Only this, and nothing more." . . . 



358 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, 

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. 

Not the least obeisance made he ; not an instant stopped or 

stayed he ; 
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber 

door, — 
Perched upon a bust of Pallas,^ just above my chamber door, — 
Perched and sat, and nothing more. 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 

" Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, " art sure 

no craven ; 
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly 

shore. 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian ^ 

shore?" 
Quoth the raven, *' Nevermore ! " 



THE BELLS 

I. 

Hear the sledges with the bells, — 
Silver bells, — 
What a world of merriment their melody foretells ! 
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. 

In the icy air of night ! 
While the stars that oversprinkle 
All the heavens seem to twinkle 
With a crystalline delight, — 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 

1 the goddess of Wisdom 

2 Plutonian, dark, gloomy; Pluto was the fabled god of the underworld 



POE 359 

From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells, — 
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 

II. 
Hear the mellow wedding-bells, — 
Golden bells ! 
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ! 
Through the balmy air of night 
How they ring out their delight ! 
From the molten-golden notes, 

And all in tune, 
What a liquid ditty floats 
To the turtle-dove that hstens, while she gloats 
On the moon ! 
O, from out the sounding cells. 
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells ! 
How it swells ! 
How it dwells 
On the Future ! how it tells 
Of the rapture that impels 
To the swinging and the ringing 

Of the bells, bells, bells. 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells, — 
To the rhyming and the chimmg of the bells. 

III. 
Hear the loud alarum bells, — 
Brazen bells ! 
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells ! 
In the startled ear of night 
How they scream out their affright ! 
Too much horrified to speak. 
They can only shriek, shriek. 
Out of tune, 
In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 



360 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire 
Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
With a desperate desire. 
And a resolute endeavor. 
Now — now to sit or never, 
By the side of the pale-faced moon. 
O the bells, bells, bells. 
What a tale their terror tells 
Of despair I 
How they clang and clash and roar ! 
W^hat a horror they outpour 
On the bosom of the palpitating air ! 
Yet the ear it fully knows. 
By the twanging, 
And the clanging, 
How the danger ebbs and flows ; 
Yet the ear distinctly tells. 
In the jangling. 
And the wrangling, 
How the danger sinks and swells, 
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, - 
Of the bells, — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells, — 
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells ! 

IV. 

Hear the tolling of the bells, — 
Iron bells ! 
What a world of solemn thought their monody^ compels 
In the silence of the night ; 
How we shiver with affright 
At the melancholy menace of their tone ; 
For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 
Is a groan. 

1 a mournful solo 



POE 361 

And the people, — ah, the people. 

They that dwell up in the steeple, 

All alone, 
And who tolling, tolling, tolling, 
In that muffled monotone, 
Feel a glory in so rolling 

On the human heart a stone, — 
They are neither man nor woman, — 
They are neither brute nor human, — 

They are gholes. 
And their king it is who tolls ; 
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls, 

A psean ^ from the bells ! 
And his merry bosom swells 

With the paean of the bells ! 
And he dances and he yells ; 
Keeping time, time, time. 
In a sort of Runic rhyme. 
To the psean of the bells, — 
Of the bells ; 
Keeping time, time, time. 
In a sort of Runic rhyme. 

To the throbbing of the bells ; 
Of the bells, bells, bells, — 

To the sobbing of the bells ; 
Keeping time, time, time. 

As he knells, knells, knells. 
In a happy Runic rhyme. 

To the rolling of the bells, — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, — 

To the tolling of the bells. 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, — 
Bells, bells, bells, — 
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 



1 song of triumph 



362 



CATHCARrS LITERARY READER 



RUSKIN 
1819- 

JoHN RusKiN was born in London in 1819. He was educated at Oxford, 
where he won the Newdigate Prize for English poetry. He has devoted 
most of his life to the study and exposition of Art, and has written many 
books, most of which treat of architecture and painting. His first work 
was " Modern Painters," which at once established his reputation. It 




elicited profuse criticism, which in effect was favorable ; but high author- 
ities severely censured it as illogical and as extravagant in style. In the 
preface to this work Ruskin says : " In the main aim and principle of the 
book there is no variation from its first syllable to its last. It declares the 
perfectness and eternal beauty of the Work of God, and tests all work of 
man by concurrence with, or subjection to, that. And it differs from most 
books, and has a chance of being in, some respects better for the difference, 
that it has not been written for fame, or for money, or for conscience' sake, 



RUSKIN 363 

but of necessity." Among his best-known works are "The Seven Lamps 
of Architecture," " Stones of Venice," and " Lectures on Architecture and 
Painting." Within a few years he has given much attention to questions 
of political economy. 

On few writers have praise and blame been bestowed in so great volume 
and in so nearly equal measure. In the early years of his career the weight 
of critical authority was against him; but to-day his hold upon popular 
respect seems firm. His dogmatism has cost him many friends, and the 
eccentricities of his style — which, however, is forcible, and vigorous with 
a certain wild beauty — have repelled many readers from his books. But it 
is impossible not to admire his earnestness, his love of truth, and his detes- 
tation of shams. He has done more than any other living writer to stimu- 
late public interest in art, and to formulate sound theories about it. 



WATER 



Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, 
and without assistance or combination, water is the most won- 
derful. If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness 
and beauty which we have seen in clouds ; then as the instru- 
ment by which the earth we have contemplated was modeled 
into symmetry, and its crags chiseled into grace ; then as, in 
the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made with 
that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if 
we had not seen ; then as it exists in the foam of the torrent, — 
in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from 
it, in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, 
in the broad lake and glancing river ; finally, in that which is to 
all human minds the best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable 
power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of the sea ; 
what shall we compare to this mighty, this universal element, for 
glory and for beauty? or how shall we follow its eternal change- 
fulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint a soul. 

Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the 
sea of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three 
or four days and nights ; and to those who have not, I beHeve it 
must be unimaginable, not from the mere force or size of surge, 



364 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

but from the complete annihilation of the limit between sea and 
air. The water from its prolonged agitation is beaten, not into 
mere creaming foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast, which 
hang in ropes and wreaths from wave to wave, and where one 
curls over to break, form a festoon like a drapery, from its edge ; 
these are taken up by the wind, not in dissipating dust, but 
bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses, which make the air 
white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot or two 
long each ; the surges themselves are full of foam in their very 
bodies, underneath, making them white all through, as the water 
is mider a great cataract ; and their masses, being thus half 
water and half air, are torn to pieces by the wind, whenever they 
rise, and carried away in roaring smoke, which chokes and stran- 
gles like actual water. Add to this, that when the air has been 
exhausted of its moisture by long rain, the spray of the sea is 
caught by it, and covers its surface, not merely with the smoke of 
finely divided water, but with boiling mist ; imagine also the low 
rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have 
often seen them, whirling and flying in rags and fragments from 
wave to wave ; and, finally, conceive the surges themselves in 
their utmost pitch of power, velocity, vastness, and madness, 
lifting themselves in precipices and peaks, furrowed with their 
whirl of ascent, through all this chaos, and you will understand 
that there is, indeed, no distinction left between the sea and air ; 
that no object, nor horizon, nor any landmark or natural evidence 
of position is left ; that the heaven is all spray, and the ocean aU 
cloud, and that you can see no farther in any direction than you 
could see through a cataract. Few people have had the oppor- 
tunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have, 
can not face it. To hold by a mast or a rock, and watch it, is a 
prolonged endurance of drowning which few people have cour- 
age to go through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest 
lessons of nature. 

Ah rivers, small or large, agree in one character : they like to 
lean a little on one side ; they cannot bear to have their chan- 
nels deepest in the middle, but will always, if they can, have one 



RUSKIN 365 

bank to sun themselves upon, and another to get cool under ; 
one shingly shore to play over, where they may be shallow, and 
foolish, and childlike ; and another steep shore, under which 
they can pause and purify themselves, and get their strength of 
waves fully together for due occasions. Rivers in this way are 
just like wise men, who keep one side of their life for play, and 
another for work ; and can be brilliant, and chattering, and trans- 
parent when they are at ease, and yet take deep counsel on the 
other side when they set themselves to the main purpose. And 
rivers are just in this divided, also, like wicked and good men ; 
the good rivers have serviceable deep places all along their banks 
that ships can sail in, but the wicked rivers go scoopingly, irregu- 
larly, under their banks until they get full of strangling eddies, 
which no boat can row over without being twisted against the 
rocks, and pools like wells which no one can get out of but the 
water-kelpie ^ that lives at the bottom ; but, wicked or good, the 
rivers all agree in having two sides. 

When water, not in very great body, runs in a rocky bed much 
interrupted by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then in 
a pool as it goes along, it does not acquire a continuous velocity 
of motion. It pauses after every leap, and curdles about, and 
rests a little, and then goes on again ; and if in this compara- 
tively tranquil and rational state of mind it meets with an obsta- 
cle, as a rock or stone, it parts on each side of it with a little 
bubbling foam, and goes round : if it comes to a step in its bed, 
it leaps it lightly, and then after a little plashing at the bottom, 
stops again to take breath. But if its bed be on a continuous 
slope, not much interrupted by hollows, so that it can not rest, 
or if its own mass be so increased by flood that its usual resting- 
places are not sufficient for it, but that it is perpetually pushed 
out of them by the following current, before it has had time to 
tranquillize itself, it of course gains velocity with every yard that 
it runs ; the impetus got at one leap is carried to the credit of 
the next, until the whole stream becomes one mass of unchecked, 
accelerating motion. 

^ a warning water-spirit 



366 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Now, when water in this state comes to an obstacle, it does not 
part at it, but clears it like a race-horse ; and when it comes to a 
hollow, it does not fill it up and run out leisurely at the other side, 
but it rushes down into it and comes up again on the other side, 
as a ship into the hollow of the sea. Hence the whole appear- 
ance of the bed of the stream is changed, and all the lines of the 
water altered in their nature. 

The quiet stream is a succession of leaps and pools ; the leaps 
are light and springy, and parabolic, and make a great deal of 
splashing when they tumble into the pool ; then we have a space 
of quiet curdling water, and another similar leap below. But the 
stream when it has gained an impetus takes the shape of its bed, 
never stops, is equally deep and equally swift everywhere, goes 
down into every hollow, not with a leap, but with a swing, not 
foaming, nor splashing, but in the bending line of a strong sea- 
wave, and comes up again on the other side, over rock and ridge, 
with the ease of a bounding leopard ; if it meet a rock three or 
four feet above the level of its bed, it will neither part nor foam, 
nor express any concern about the matter, but clear it in a 
smooth dome of water, without apparent exertion, coming down 
again as smoothly on the other side ; the whole surface of the 
surge being drawn into parallel lines by its extreme velocity, but 
foamless, except in places where the form of the bed opposes 
itself at some direct angle to such a line of fall, and causes a 
breaker; so that the whole river has the appearance of a deep 
and raging sea, with this only difference, that the torrent-waves 
always break backwards, and sea-waves forwards. Thus, then, 
in the water which has gained an impetus, we have the most 
exquisite arrangements of curved lines, perpetually changing 
from convex to concave, and vice versa, following every swell 
and hollow of the bed with their modulating grace, and all in 
unison of motion, presenting perhaps the most beautiful series 
of inorganic forms which nature can possibly produce ; for the 
sea runs too much into similar and concave curves with sharp 
edges, but every motion of the torrent is united, and all its curves 
are modifications of beautiful lines. 



RUSK IN 367 

THE CLOUDS 

Stand upon the peak of some isolated mountain at daybreak, 
when the night-mists first rise from off the plains, and watch 
their white and lake-like fields as they float in level bays and 
winding gulfs about the islanded summits of the lower hills, 
untouched yet by more than dawn, colder and more quiet than 
a windless sea under the moon of midnight. Watch when the 
first sunbeam is sent upon the silver channels, how the foam 
of their undulating surface parts and passes away ; and down 
under their depths the glittering city and green pasture lie, 
like Atlantis, between the white paths of winding rivers ; the 
flakes of light falling every moment faster and broader among 
the spires, starry as the wreathed surges break and vanish above 
them, and the confused crests and ridges of the dark hills 
shorten their gray shadows upon the plain. 

Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered mists 
rallying in the ravines and floating up towards you, along the 
winding valleys, till they couch in quiet masses, iridescent^ with 
the morning light, upon the broad breasts of the higher hills, 
whose leagues of massy undulation will melt back and back 
into that robe of material light, until they fade away, lost in its 
luster, to appear again above, in the serene heaven, like a wild, 
bright, impossible dream, foundationless and inaccessible, their 
very bases vanishing in the unsubstantial and mocking blue of 
the deep lake below. Wait yet a little longer, and you shall 
see those mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand 
like fortresses along the promontories, massy and motionless, 
only piling with every instant higher and higher into the sky, 
and casting longer shadows athwart the rocks; and out of the 
pale blue of the horizon you will see forming and advancing a 
troop of narrow, dark, pointed vapors, which will cover the sky, 
inch by inch, with their gray network, and take the light off the 
landscape with an eclipse which will stop the singing of the birds 
and the motion of the leaves together ; and then you will see 



1 rainbow-colored 



368 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

horizontal bars of black shadow forming under them, and lurid 
wreaths create themselves, you know not how, along the shoulders 
of the hills ; you never see them form, but when you look back 
to a place which was clear an instant ago, there is a cloud on it, 
hanging by the precipices, as a hawk pauses over his prey. 

And then you will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, 
and you will see those watch-towers of vapor swept away from 
their foundations, and waving curtains of opaque rain let down 
to the valleys, swinging from the burdened clouds in black, bend- 
ing fringes, or pacing in pale columns along the lake level, graz- 
ing its surface into foam as they go. And then, as the sun sinks, 
you shall see the storm drift for an instant from off the hills, 
leaving their broad sides smoking, and loaded yet with snow- 
white, torn, steam -like rags of capricious vapor, now gone, now 
gathered again ; while the smoldering sun, seeming not far away, 
but burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could 
reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with 
headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the 
air about it with blood. And then you shall hear the fainting 
tempest die in the hollow of the night, and you shall see a green 
halo kindling on the summit of the eastern hills, brighter — 
brighter yet, till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted 
up among the barred clouds, step by step, line by line ; star after 
star she quenches with her kindling light, setting in their stead 
an army of pale, penetrable, fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to give 
light upon the earth, which move together hand in hand, com- 
pany by company, troop by troop, so measured in their unity of 
motion that the whole heaven seems to roll with them, and the 
earth to reel under them. 

And then wait yet for one hour, until the east again becomes 
purple, and the heaving mountains, rolling against it in darkness, 
like waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the glory of 
its burning ; watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths 
about the mountains, like mighty serpents with scales of fire ; 
watch the columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards, 
chasm by chasm, each in itself a new morning ; their long ava- 



RUSKIN 369 

lanches cast down in keen streams brighter than the lightning, 
sending each his tribute of driven snow, like altar-smoke, up to 
the heaven ; the rose-light of their silent domes flushing that 
heaven about them and above them, piercing with purer light 
through its purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new glory on 
every wreath as it passes by, until the whole heaven — one scar- 
let canopy — is interwoven with a roof of waving flame, and 
tossing, vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many 
companies of angels ; and then, when you can look no more for 
gladness, and when you are bowed down with fear and love o 
the Maker and Doer of this, tell me who has best delivered this 
his message unto men ! 



Nature has a thousand ways and means of rising above her- 
self, but incomparably the noblest manifestations of her capability 
of color are in the sunsets among the high clouds. I speak 
especially of the moment before the sun sinks, when his light 
turns pure rose- color, and when this light falls upon a zenith 
covered with countless cloud- forms of inconceivable delicacy, 
threads and flakes of vapor, which would in common daylight be 
pure snow-white, and which give therefore fair field to the tone 
of light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no check 
to the intensity, of the hues assumed. The whole sky, from the 
zenith to the horizon, becomes one molten, mantling sea of color 
and fire ; every black bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and 
wave into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and purple, and scarlet, 
and colors for which there are no words in language and no ideas 
in the mind, — things which can only be conceived while they 
are visible, — ■ the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting 
through it all, — showing here deep and pure and lightless, there 
modulated by the filmy, formless body of the transparent vapor, 
till it is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and gold. 

24 



370 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



LOWELL 

1819-1891 

James Russell Lowell, poet, critic, and essayist, was born at Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, in 1819, and died in the same place, Aug. 12, 1891. 
Having graduated at Harvard College, he studied law; but after a brief ex- 
perience of the profession, he abandoned the courts for the more congenial 
walks of literature. His first volume of poetry, "A Year's Life," was pub- 




lished in 1841. In 1844 appeared a second collection of his poems, and in 
1848 a third. This last year was a memorable one in his literary career, 
it having witnessed the publication of some of his most famous compositions. 
Among these are "The Vision of Sir Launfal," " A Fable for Critics," and 
'• The Biglow Papers," besides a fresh collection of his shorter poems. In 
1855 Lowell succeeded to the chair of Belles-Lettres in Harvard College, for 
many years occupied by Longfellow. After this he undertook no important 
literary enterprises. He wrote, however, occasional poems, among them 



LOIVELL 371 

the " Commemoration Ode " and " The Cathedral," which exhibit his powers 
at their best; and he was, from 1857 to 1862, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 
and from 1S63 to 1872 editor of the A'orth American Review. The chief 
volumes bearing his name issued in his later years were two collections of 
essays, — " My Study Windows," and " Among my Books ; a life of 
his old friend Hawthorne ; a collection of poems, " Heartsease and Rue ; '' 
and a volume of prose, " Democracy and other Addresses." 

Lowell was far from sacrificing vigor to finish, yet his compositions illus- 
trate the highest American attainment in style. His "■ Fable for Critics " 
exhibited him as a successful pioneer in a department of poetical effort which 
had been almost untried in this country. " The Biglow Papers " are a unique 
product of American humor, and though written with reference to a tempo- 
rary condition of public sentiment, must always be valued for their graphic 
and faithful representations of Yankee character, and for the mingled wit and 
wisdom with which they abound. As an essayist, Lowell is at his best in deal- 
ing with literary topics; his essays on certain old English writers are hardly 
surpassed in English literature. He was, however, a sympathetic student of 
Nature as well as of books, as may be seen in " My Garden Acquaintance." 
Lowell was appointed in 1873 to be United States minister to Spain, and 
later to be minister to England, which latter office he resigned in 1885. 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE 

Dr. Watts's statement that " birds in their little nests agree," 
like too many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far 
from being true. On the contrary, the most peaceful relation of 
the different species to each other is that of armed neutrality. 
They are very jealous of neighbors. A few years ago I was 
much interested in the house-building of a pair of summer yellow- 
birds. They had chosen a very pretty site near the top of a tall 
white lilac, within easy eyeshot of a chamber window. A very 
pleasant thing it was to see their little home growing with mutual 
help, to watch their industrious skill interrupted only by little 
flirts and snatches of endearment, frugally cut short by the com- 
mon-sense of the tiny housewife. They had brought their work 
nearly to an end, and had already begun to line it with fern- 
down, the gathering of which demanded more distant journeys 



372 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

and longer absences. But, alas ! the syringa, immemorial manor 
of the catbirds, was not more than twenty feet away, and these 
"giddy neighbors" had, as it appeared, been all along jealously 
watchful, though silent, witnesses of what they deemed an intru- 
sion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty mates fairly gone 
for a new load of lining, than 

" To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots 
Came stealing." 

Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at 
the nest in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy 
it, for they might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, 
whenever the yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden 
in their own sight-proof bush. Several times their unconscious 
victims repaired damages ; but at length, after counsel taken 
together, they gave it up. Perhaps, like other unlettered folk, 
they came to the conclusion that the Devil was in it, and yielded 
to the invisible persecutions of witchcraft. 

The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, have suc- 
ceeded in driving off the blue-jays who used to build in our pines, 
their gay colors and quaint, noisy ways making them welcome and 
amusing neighbors. I once had the chance of doing a kindness 
to a household of them, which they received with very friendly 
condescension. I had had my eye for some time upon a nest, 
and was puzzled by a constant fluttering of what seemed full- 
grown wings in it whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed the 
tree, in spite of angry protests from the old birds against my 
intrusion. The mystery had a very simple solution. In building 
the nest, a long piece of packthread had been somewhat loosely 
woven in. Three of the young had contrived to entangle them- 
selves in it, and had become full-grown without being able to 
launch themselves upon the air. One was unharmed; another 
had so tightly twisted the cord about its shank that one foot was 
curled up and seemed paralyzed ; the third, in its struggles to 
escape had sawn through the flesh of the thigh and so much 
harmed itself that I thought it humane to put an end to its 
misery. When I took out my knife to cut their hempen bonds, 



LOfVELL 



373 



the heads of the family seemed to divine my friendly intent. 
Suddenly ceasing their cries and threats, they perched quietly 
within reach of my hand, and watched me in my work of manu- 
mission. This, owing to the fluttering terror of the prisoners, 
was an affair of some delicacy ; but erelong I was rewarded by 
seeing one of them fly away to a neighboring tree, while the 
cripple, making a parachute ^ of his wings, came lightly to the 
ground, and hopped off as well as he could with one leg, obsequi- 
ously waited on by his elders. A week later, I had the satisfac- 
tion of meeting him in the pine walk, in good spirits, and already 
so far recovered as to be able to balance himself with the lame 
foot. I have no doubt that in his old age he accounted for his 
lameness by some handsome story of a wound received at the 
famous Battle of the Pines, when our tribe, overcome by numbers, 
was driven from its ancient cam ping- ground. 

Of late years the jays have visited us only at intervals ; and in 
winter their bright plumage, set off by the snow, and their 
cheerful cry, are especially welcome. They would have fur- 
nished ^sop with a fable, for the feathered crest in which they 
seem to take so much satisfaction is often their fatal snare. 
Country boys make a hole with their finger in the snow-crust 
just large enough to admit the jay's head, and, hollowing it out 
somewhat beneath, bait it with a few kernels of corn. The 
crest slips easily into the trap, but refuses to be pulled out again, 
and he who came to feast remains a prey.^ 

Twice have the crow- blackbirds attempted a settlement in my 
pines, and twice have the robins, who claim a right of pre-emp- 
tion, so successfully played the part of border-ruffians as to drive 
them away, — to my great regret, for they are the best substitute 
we have for rooks. At Shady Hill (now, alas ! empty of its so 
long loved household) they build by hundreds, and nothing can 
be more cheery than their creaking clatter (like a convention 

1 from Yv.parer, " to ward off," and ckiife, " a fall " 

2 This is a playful allusion to Goldsmith's lines, — 

" Truth from his lips prevailed with double swa\-, 
And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray." 



374 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

of old-fashioned tavern-signs) as they gather at evening to 
debate in mass-meeting their windy pohtics, or to gossip at 
their tent-doors over the events of the day. Their port is 
grave, and their stalk across the turf as martial as that of a 
second-rate ghost in " Hamlet." They never meddled with my 
corn, so far as I could discover. 

For a few years I had crows ; but their nests are an irresistible 
bait for boys, and their settlement was broken up. They grew 
so wonted^ as to throw off a great part of their shyness, and to 
tolerate my near approach. One very hot day I stood for some 
time within twenty feet of a mother and three children, who sat 
on an elm-bough over my head, gasping in the sultry air, and 
holding their wings half spread for coolness. All birds during 
the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur 
soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition 
and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical 
as a lover ; and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the 
proper Saint- Preux standard has something the effect of a 
Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few 
things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter 
morning as it drops to you filtered through five hundred fathoms 
of crisp blue air. The hostility of all smaller birds makes the 
moral character of the crow, for all his deaconlike demeanor 
and garb, somewhat questionable. He could never sally forth 
without insult. The golden robins, especially, would chase 
him as far as I could follow with my eye, making him duck 
clumsily to avoid their importunate bills. I do not believe, 
however, that he robbed any nests hereabouts, for the refuse of 
the gas-works, which, in our free-and-easy community, is allowed 
to poison the river, supplied him with dead alewives in abund- 
ance. I used to watch him making his periodical visits to the 
salt-marshes, and coming back with a fish in his beak to his 
young savages, who, no doubt, like it in that condition which 
makes it savory to the Kanakas^ and other corvine^ races of men. 

1 habituated to surroundings, and hence, familiar 

2 Sandwich Island natives ^ fj-om Lat. corvus, " a crow ; " crow-like 



LOIVELL 375 

DEMOCRACY i 

I. 

I SHALL address myself to a single point only in the long list 
of offenses of which we^ are more or less gravely accused, be- 
cause that really includes all the rest. It is that we are infecting 
the Old World with what seems to be thought the entirely new 
disease of Democracy. 

There can be no doubt that the spectacle of a great and 
prosperous Democracy on the other side of the Atlantic must 
react powerfully on the aspirations and political theories of 
men in the Old World who do not find things to their mind ; 
but, whether for good or evil, it should not be overlooked that 
the acorn from which it sprang was ripened on the British 
oak. Every successive swarm that has gone out from this 
officifia gentium ^ has, when left to its own instincts — may I 
not call them hereditary instincts? — assumed a more or less 
thoroughly democratic form. This would seem to show, what 
I believe to be the fact, that the British constitution, under what- 
ever disguises of prudences or decorum, is essentially democratic. 
People are continually saying that America is in the air ; and I am 
glad to think it is, since this means only that a clearer conception 
of human claims and human duties is beginning to be prevalent. 

The discontent with the existing order of things, however, 
pervaded the atmosphere wherever the conditions were favor- 
able, long before Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found 
himself knocking at the front door of America. I say wherever 
the conditions were favorable ; for it is certain that the germs of 
disease do not stick or find a prosperous field for their develop- 
ment and noxious activity unless where the simplest sanitary pre- 

1 This selection is taken from Lowell's ** Inaugural Address " as President 
of the Midland Institute, at Birmingham, England, in the autumn of 1884. 
The text as here given was revised by Mr. Lowell himself for publication in 
the Pall Mall Gazette. 

2 we ; i. e. the American people 
^ Lat., workshop of the world 



376 CAT H CARTS LITERARY READER 

cautions have been neglected. It is only when the reasonable 
and practicable are denied that men demand the unreasonable 
and impracticable ; only when the possible is made difficult that 
they fancy the impossible to be easy. Fairy tales are made out 
of the dreams of the poor. No ; the sentiment which lies at the 
root of democracy is nothing new. I am speaking always of a 
sentiment, a spirit, and not of a form of government; for this 
was but the outgrowth of the other, and not its cause. It is 
merely the natural wish of people to have a hand, if need be a 
controlling hand, in the management of their own affairs. What 
is new is that they are more and more gaining that control, and 
learning more and more how to be worthy of it. What we used 
to call the tendency, or drift, — what we are being taught to call, 
more wisely, the evolution,^ — of things has for some time been 
setting steadily in this direction. There is no good in arguing 
with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east 
wind is to put on- your overcoat. And in this case, also, the 
prudent will prepare themselves to encounter what they can not 
prevent. ... 

To the door of every generation there comes a knocking,^ and 
unless the household, like the Thane of Cawdor^ and his wife, 
have been doing some deed without a name, they need not 
shudder. It turns out at worst to be a poor relation who wishes 
to come in out of the cold. The porter always grumbles and is 
slow to open. *' Who 's there, in the name of Beelzebub ? " he 
mutters. Not a change for the better in our mortal housekeep- 
ing has ever taken place that wise and good men have not 
opposed it, have not prophesied, with the alderman, that the 
world would wake up to find its throat cut in consequence of 
it. The world, on the contrary, wakes up, rubs its eyes, yawns, 
stretches itself, and goes about its business as if nothing had 
happened. Suppression of the slave trade, abolition of slavery, 
trade-unions, — at all of these, excellent people shook their heads 

^ evolving, unfolding, development 

2 a reference to the knocking at the gate in " Macbeth," ii. 3 

^ Macbeth 



LOIVELL 377 

despondingly, and murmured "Ichabod."^ But the trade-unions 
are now debating instead of conspiring, and we all read their 
discussions with comfort and hope, sure that they are learning 
the business of citizenship and the difficulties of practical 
legislation. 

Few people take the trouble of trying to find out what 
democracy really is. Yet this would be a great help, for it is 
our lawless and uncertain thoughts,^ it is the indefiniteness of 
our impressions, that fill darkness, whether mental or physical, 
with specters and hobgoblins. Democracy is nothing more than 
an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new 
soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall 
on its own merits as others have done before it. For there 
is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in 
mechanics. President Lincoln defined democracy to be " the 
government of the people by the people, /6'/' the people." This 
is a sufficiently compact statement of it as a political arrange- 
ment, Theodore Parker said that '* Democracy meant, not ' I 'm 
as good as you are,' but 'You're as good as I am.' " And this 
is the ethical conception of it, necessary as a complement^ to 
the other, — a conception which, could it be made actual and 
practical, would easily solve all the riddles that the old sphinx 
of political and social economy who sits by the roadside has 
been proposing to mankind from the beginning, and which 
mankind have shown such a singular talent for answering 
wrongly. In this sense Christ was the first true democrat that 
ever breathed, as the old dramatist Dekker said he was the 
first true gentleman. The characters may be easily doubled, so 
strong is the hkeness between them. A beautiful and profound 
parable of the Persian poet Jellaludeen tells us that " One 
knocked at the Beloved's door, and a voice asked from within, 

1 Hebrew, '* the glory is departed " . 

'^ allusion to — 

" To be worse than worst 
Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts 
Imagine howling ! " — Measure for Measure, iii. i 

•^ that which makes complete ; Lat. complere. " to fill up " 



378 CATHC^RT'S LITERARY READER 

'Who is there?' and he answered, 'It is I.' Then the voice 
said, 'This house will not hold me and thee;' and the door 
was not opened. Then went the lover into the desert, and 
fasted and prayed in solitude, and after a year he returned and 
knocked again at the door ; and again the voice asked, ' Who is 
there?' and he said 'It is thyself;' and the door was opened 
to him." But that is idealism,^ you will say, and this is an only 
too practical world. I grant it ; but I am one of those who 
believe that the real will never find an irremovable basis till it 
rests on the ideal. 

11. 

The framers of the American constitution were far from wish- 
ing or intending to found a democracy in the strict sense of the 
word, though, as was inevitable, every expansion of the scheme 
of government they elaborated has been in a democratical direc- 
tion. But this has been generally the slow result of growth, and 
not the sudden innovation of theory; in fact, they had a pro- 
found disbelief in theory, and knew better than to commit the 
folly of breaking with the past. They were not seduced by the 
French fallacy that a new system of government could be ordered 
like a new suit of clothes. They would as soon have thought 
of ordering a suit of flesh and skin. It is only on the roaring 
loom of Time that the stuff is woven for such a vesture of their 
thought and experience as they were meditating. They recog- 
nized fully the value of tradition and habit as the great allies 
of permanence and stability. They all had that distaste for 
innovation which belonged to their race, and many of them a 
distrust of human nature derived from their creed. The day of 
sentiment was over, and no dithyrambic '^ affirmations or fine- 
drawn analyses of the rights of man would serve their present 
turn. This was a practical question, and they addressed them- 
selves to it as men of knowledge and judgment should. Their 
problem was how to adapt English principles and precedents to 

1 the proposal of exalted conceptions for imitation and realization 
- enthusiastic (See Webster) 



LOIVELL 379 

the new conditions of American life ; and they solved it with 
singular discretion. They put as many obstacles as they could 
contrive, not in the way of the people's will, but of their whim. 
With few exceptions, they probably admitted the logic of the then 
accepted syllogism,^ — democracy, anarchy, despotism. But this 
formula was framed upon the experience of small cities shut up 
to stew within their narrow walls, where the number of citizens 
made but an inconsiderable fraction of the inhabitants, where 
every passion was reverberated from house to house and from 
man to man with gathering rumor till every impulse became 
gregarious and therefore inconsiderate, and every popular assem- 
bly needed but an infusion of eloquent sophistry ^ to turn it into 
a mob all the more dangerous because sanctified with the 
formality of law. 

Fortunately their case was wholly different. They were to 
legislate for a widely-scattered population and for States already 
practiced in the discipline of a partial independence. They had 
an unequaled opportunity and enormous advantages. The mate- 
rial they had to work upon was already democratical by instinct 
and habitude. It was tempered to their hands by more than a 
century's schooling in self-government. They had but to give 
permanent and conservative form to a ductile ^ mass. In giving 
impulse and direction to their new institutions, especially in sup- 
plying them with checks and balances, they had a great help and 
safeguard in their federal organization. The different, some- 
times conflicting, interests and social systems of the several 
States made existence as a Union and coalescence into a nation 
conditional on a constant practice of moderation and compro- 
mise. The very elements of disintegration were the best guides 
in political training. Their children learned the lesson of com- 
promise only too well, and it was the application of it to a 
question of fundamental morals that cost us our civil war. We 
learned once for all that compromise makes a good umbrella, 
but a poor roof; that it is a temporary expedient, often wise in 
party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship. 

1 logical form of argument 2 fallacious reasoning ^ tractable, yielding 



380 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Has not the trial of democracy in America proved on the 
whole successful ? If it had not, would the Old World be vexed 
with any fears of its proving contagious? . . . We are told that 
the inevitable result of democracy is to sap the foundations of 
personal independence, to weaken the principle of authority, to 
lessen the respect due to eminence, whether in station, virtue, or 
genius. If these things were so, society could not hold together. 
... As for authority, it is one of the symptoms of the time that 
the religious reverence for it is declining everywhere ; but this is 
due partly to the fact that statecraft is no longer looked upon as 
a mystery, but as a business, and partly to the decay of supersti- 
tion, by which I mean the habit of respecting what we are told 
to respect rather than what is respectable in itself. There is 
more rough and tumble in the /\merican democracy than is 
altogether agreeable to people of sensitive nerves and refined 
habits, and the people take their political duties lightly and 
laughingly, as is, perhaps, neither unnatural nor unbecoming in 
a young giant. Democracies can no more jump away from their 
own shadows than the rest of us can. 

But democracies have likewise their finer instincts. I have 
seen the wisest statesman and most pregnant speaker of our 
generation, a man of humble birth and ungainly manners, of 
little culture beyond what his own genius supplied, become more 
absolute in power than any monarch of modern times through the 
reverence of his countrymen for his honesty, his wisdom, his sin- 
cerity, his faith in God and man, and the nobly humane simplicity 
of his character. And I remember another whom popular respect 
enveloped as with a halo, the least vulgar of men, the most aus- 
terely genial, and the most independent of opinion. Wherever 
he went he never met a stranger, but everywhere neighbors and 
friends proud of him as their ornament and decoration. Institu- 
tions which could bear and breed such men as Lincoln and Em- 
erson had surely some energy for good. No, amid all the fruit- 
less turmoil and miscarriage of the world, if there be one thing 
steadfast and of favorable omen, one thing to make optimism^ 

1 the opinion that " whatever is, is right " and for the best 



LOIVELL 381 

distrust its own obscure distrust, it is the rooted instinct in 
men to admire what is better and more beautiful than them- 
selves. The touchstone of political and social institutions is their 
abihty to supply them with worthy objects of this sentiment, 
which is the very tap-root of civilization and progress. There 
would seem to be no readier way of feeding it with the elements 
of growth and vigor than such an organization of society as will 
enable men to respect themselves, and so justify them in respect- 
ing others. 

All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality gov- 
ernments by public opinion, and it is on the quality of this public 
opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first 
duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of 
life. With the growth of democracy grows also the fear, if not 
the danger, that this atmosphere may be corrupted with pois- 
onous exhalations from lower and more malarious levels ; and the 
question of sanitation becomes more instant and pressing. De- 
mocracy in its best sense is merely the letting in of light and 
air. Lord Sherbrooke, with his usual epigrammatic terseness, 
bids you educate your future rulers. But would this alone be a 
sufficient safeguard? To educate the intelligence is to enlarge 
the horizon of its desires and wants. And it is well that this 
should be so. But the enterprise must go deeper, and prepare 
the way for satisfying those desires and wants in so far as they 
are legitimate. If we can not equalize conditions and fortunes 
any more than we can equalize the brains of men, — and a very 
sagacious person has said that " where two men ride on a horse, 
one must ride behind," — we can yet, perhaps, do something to 
correct those methods and influences that lead to enormous 
inequalities, and to prevent their growing more enormous. 

I do not believe in violent changes, nor do I expect them. 
Things in possession have a very firm grip. One of the strongest 
cements of society is the conviction of mankind that the state of 
things into which they are born is a part of the order of the uni- 
verse, as natural, let us say, as that the earth should go round the 
sun. It is a conviction that they will not surrender except on 



382 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

compulsion ; and a wise society should look to it that this com- 
pulsion be not put upon them. For the individual man there is 
no radical cure for the evils to which human nature is heir outside 
of human nature itself. The rule will always hold good that you 
must 

" Be your own palace, or the world 's your jail." 

But for artificial evils, for evils that spring from want of thought, 
thought must find a remedy somewhere. There has been no 
period of time in which wealth has been more sensible of its 
duties than now. It builds hospitals, it establishes missions 
among the poor, it endows schools. It is one of the advan- 
tages of accumulated wealth, and of the leisure it renders pos- 
sible, that people have time to think of the wants and sorrows 
of their fellows. 

But all these remedies are partial and palliative merely. It 
is as if we should apply plasters to a single pustule of the small- 
pox with a view of driving out the disease. The true way is 
to discover and to extirpate ^ the germs. As society is now con- 
stituted, these are in the air it breathes, in the water it drinks, 
in things that seem, and which it has always believed, to be the 
most innocent and healthful. The evil elements it neglects cor- 
rupt these in their springs, and pollute them in their courses. Let 
us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes 
hardest to bear are those which never come. The world has 
cultivated much, and will outlive a great deal more, and men 
have contrived to be happy in it. It has shown the strength of 
its constitution in nothing more than in surviving the quack medi- 
cines it has tried. In the scales of the destinies brawn will never 
weigh so much as brain. Our healing is not in the storm or in 
the whirlwind, it is not in monarchies, or aristocracies, or democ- 
racies, but will be revealed by the still small voice that speaks to 
the conscience and the heart, prompting us to a wider and wiser 
humanity. 

1 eradicate, destroy ; etymology ? 



LOIVELL 383 



YUSSOUF 



A STRANGER Came one night to Yussouf's tent, 

Saying, " Behold one outcast and in dread, 

Against whose Ufe the bow of power is bent, 

Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head ; 

I come to thee for shelter and for food, 

To Yussouf, called through all our tribes ' The Good.' " 

"This tent is mine," said Yussouf, ''but no more 

Than it is God's ; come in, and be at peace ; 

Freely shalt thou partake of all my store 

As I of His who buildeth over these 

Our tents his glorious roof of night and day. 

And at whose door none ever yet heard Nay." 

So Yussouf entertained his guest that night, 
And, waking him ere day, said : " Here is gold, 
My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight, 
Depart before the prying day grow bold." 
As one lamp lights another, nor grows less, 
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. 

That inward light the stranger's face made grand, 
Which shines from all self-conquest ; kneeling low, 
He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf's hand, 
Sobbing : " O Sheik, I can not leave thee so ; 
I will repay thee ; all this thou hast done 
Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son ! " 

"Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, " for with thee 

Into the desert, never to return. 

My one black thought shall ride away from me ; 

First-born, for whom by day and night I yearn. 

Balanced and just are all of God's decrees ; 

Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace ! " 



384 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR 

He spoke of Burns : men rude and rough 
Pressed round to hear the praise of one 
Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff, 
As homespun as their own. 

And, when he read, they forward leaned. 
Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears, 
His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned 
From humble smiles and tears. 

Slowly there grew a tender awe 
Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard. 
As if in him who read they felt and saw 
Some presence of the bard. 

It was a sight for sin and wrong 
And slavish tyranny to see, 
A sight to make our faith more pure and strong 
In high humanity. 

I thought : These men will carry hence 
Promptings their former life above. 
And something of a finer reverence 
For beauty, truth, and love. 

God scatters love on every side. 
Freely among his children all. 
And always hearts are lying open wide, 
Wherein some grains may fall. 

There is no wind but soweth seeds 
Of a more true and open life, 
Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-souled deeds, 
With wayside beauty rife. 



LOIVELL 385 



We find within these souls of ours 
Some wild germs of a higher birth, 
Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers 
Whose fragrance fills the earth. 

Within the hearts of all men lie 
These promises of wider bliss, 
Which blossom into hopes that can not die, 
In sunny hours like this. 

All that hath been majestical 
In life or death, since time began. 
Is native in the simple heart of all, 
The angel heart of man. 

And thus, among the untaught poor. 
Great deeds and feelings find a home. 
That cast in shadow all the golden lore 
Of classic Greece and Rome. 

O, mighty brother-soul of man, 
Where'er thou art, in low or high. 
Thy skyey arches with exulting span 
O'er-roof infinity ! 

All thoughts that mold the age begin 
Deep down within the primitive soul. 
And from the many slowly upward win 
To one who grasps the whole : 

In his broad breast the feeling deep 
That struggled on the many's tongue, 
Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap 
O'er the weak thrones of wrong. 

All thought begins in feeling, — wide 
In the great mass its base is hid, 
25 



386 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, 
A moveless pyramid. 

Nor is he far astray who deems 
That every hope, which rises and grows broad 
In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams 
From the great heart of God. 

God wills, man hopes : in common souls 
Hope is but vague and undefined, 
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls 
A blessing to his kind. 

Never did Poesy appear 
So full of heaven to me, as when 
I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear 
To the lives of coarsest men. 

It may be glorious to write 
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three 
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight 
Once in a century ; — 

But better far it is to speak 
One simple word, which now and then 
Shall waken their free nature in the weak 
And friendless sons of men ; 

To write some earnest verse or line,i 
Which, seeking not the praise of art, 
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine 
In the untutored heart. 

He who doth this, in verse or prose, 
May be forgotten in his day. 
But surely shall be crowned at last with those 
Who live and speak for aye. 

1 Verse or line ; i. e. verse or prose, as in the next stanza 



LOWELL 387 

THE HERITAGE 

The rich man's son inherits lands, 

And piles of brick and stone, and gold, 
And he inherits soft white hands, 

And tender flesh that fears the cold, 

Nor dares to wear a garment old ; 
A heritage, it seems to me, 
One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 

The rich man's son inherits cares ; 

The bank may break, the factory burn, 
A breath may burst his bubble shares. 

And soft white hands could hardly earn 

A living that would serve his turn ; 
A heritage, it seems to me. 
One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 

The rich man's son inherits wants. 

His stomach craves for dainty fare ; 
With sated heart, he hears the pants 

Of toiling hinds ^ with brown arms bare. 

And wearies in his easy-chair ; 
A heritage, it seems to me. 
One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 

What doth the poor man's son inherit? 

Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, 
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit ; 

King of two hands, he does his part 

In every useful toil and art ; 
A heritage, it seems to me, 
A king might wish to hold in fee. 

What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things, 

1 hinds, literally farm-servants ; hence, laborers 



388 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

A rank adjudged by toil- won merit, 

Content that from employment springs, 
A heart that in his labor sings ; 
A heritage, it seems to me, 
A king might wish to hold in fee. 

What doth the poor man's son inherit? 
A patience learned of being poor, 

Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it ; 
A fellow-feeHng that is sure 
To make the outcast bless his door ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

A king might wish to hold in fee. 

O rich man's son ! there is a toil. 
That with all other level stands ; 

Large charity doth never soil. 

But only whiten, soft white hands, — 
This is the best crop from thy lands ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

Worth being rich to hold in fee. 

O poor man's son ! scorn not thy state ; 
There is worse weariness than thine, 

In merely being rich and great ; 
Toil only gives the soul to shine. 
And makes rest fragrant and benign ; 

A heritage, it seems to me. 

Worth being poor to hold in fee. 

Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, 
Are equal in the earth at last ; 

Both, children of the same dear God, 
Prove title to your heirship vast 
By record of a well- filled past ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

Well worth a life to hold in fee. 



BRITISH HISTORIANS 389 

BRITISH HISTORIANS 

MACAULAY — FROUDE 

TN preceding pages we have caught some passing glimpses 
of historical writing from the works of Gibbon and of 
Burke, though nothing that could give us any impressions 
beyond those of tone and style. No comparison that we 
could here make would suffice to show how completely 
History in our own day differs from all writing in the same 
department that has gone before it. Put in few words, the 
earlier historians nearly all set out with a purpose that was 
artistic in its nature. They sought, for the most part, to 
please the fancy and to excite the emotions. Of the laws 
of social progress they had scarcely any notion. For 
painstaking research their facilities were few and their in- 
clination was slight. The historians of this century look 
upon society as an organism, governed, like all other organ- 
isms, by certain laws of development; and the methods 
they adopt are borrowed from the order of science. 

An account of the growth and development of this spe- 
cies of writing — a history, that is, of History — would show 
the several steps of the slow transition through which His- 
tory has ceased to be an unreliable chronicle of dynastic 
events, and has become the truthful record of man's prog- 
ress, and of the reasons of his progress, out of savagery 
and into conditions of ever-increasing enlightenment. 

Of the more recent British historians, none have had a 
wider influence than the two, Macaulay and Froude, from 
whose works are taken the selections which follow. Of 
their compeers in the same field, it must here suffice to 
mention some of the more influential, with the subjects of 
their principal works. 



390 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Lingard's ** History of England," Sir Francis Palgrave's 
'* History of the Anglo-Saxons," Freeman's " History of 
the Norman Conquest," and Lecky's ** History of England 
in the Eighteenth Century," are important contributions 
to our knowledge of the social and political development 
of the English people. 

Grote and Thirlwall gave to the world, in the same year, 
histories of Greece, and Merivale a '' History of Rome." 

Sir William Napier's " Peninsular War " and Kinglake's 
"Crimean War" afford luminous pictures of warfare in 
modern Europe. 

James Mill's ** History of British India" and Helps's 
*' History of the Spanish Conquest in America" trace for 
us the spread of European civilization over opposite quar- 
ters of the globe. 

Lecky in his *' History of European Morals," Green in 
his " History of the English People," and Buckle in his 
** History of Civilization in England" have brought to the 
historian's task the habits of mind of the sociologist. 

Two great histories of the English Constitution are 
those of Henry Hallam and Walter Bagehot. Among 
English lecturers on the general subject of History, Thomas 
Arnold of Rugby, Professor Goldwin Smith, and Rev. 
Charles Kingsley have given us w^orks of lasting value. 



MACAU LAY 



391 



MACAULAY 



1800- 1859 



Thomas Babington Macaulay, one of the greatest of modern historians, 
was born in Leicestershire, England, in 1800, and died in 1859. His father, 
Zachary Macaulay, was an eminent philanthropist. The subject of this 
notice entered Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1822 with a repu- 



-^^ 




tation for varied and readily available learning. In 1826 he was called to 
the Bar, and in 1830 was elected to represent the borough of Calne in Par- 
liament. In that body he was an active supporter of the Reform measures. 
In 1834 he was sent to India as a member of the Supreme Council of Cal- 
cutta; in 1839 he was made Secretary of War; in 1841 he went out of office, 
on the accession of Sir Robert Peel ; in 1S46, the Whigs returning to power, 



392 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

he was appointed Paymaster-General of the Forces, and had a seat in the 
Cabinet. In 1847 he was defeated in the Parliamentary elections, his 
Edinburgh constituents disapproving his course on the Maynooth Grant 
question. Five years later, however, these same constituents chose him as 
their representative in Parliament, where he served them till 1856, when he 
withdrew finally from political life. Meantime, in 1S49, he was elected 
Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. In 1857 he was raised to the 
peerage, with the title of Baron, or Lord, Macaulay. 

Macaulay's first essays in literature were in the department of poetry; 
during his university career he won two prizes for poetical composition, 
and he was a frequent contributor of verse to Knighfs Quarterly Magazine. 
Among his best-known youthful productions were " The Battle of Ivry " and 
'•The Spanish Armada," — poems which foreshadowed the maturer excel- 
lence of his '•' Lays of Ancient Rome," which were first published in 1842. In 
the periodical above mentioned, Macaulay began his work as an essayist ; but 
his first great triumph in this character was in the pages of the Edinburgh 
Reviezv, in which, in 1825, appeared his essay on Milton, which at once 
gave him rank among the ablest English critics. This essay was followed 
by many others. The essay on Bacon, though less popular than some 
others, illustrates with admirable effect the original intellectual power and 
vast acquired resources of the author. His poetry, vigorous and dramatic 
though it is, has never become popular with the mass of readers. His 
history has been assailed for its partisanship and its occasional inaccuracies. 
But in the presence of his essays unfriendly criticism has stayed its hand ; 
and even the eye of envy has failed to find any serious blemishes in their 
beautiful and symmetrical fabric. 

The first and second volumes of Macaulay's " History of England, from 
the time of James II. down to a time which is within the memory of men 
still living," appeared in 1849, ^^'^ ^^n immediate success. The work did 
not, however, escape censure ; John Wilson Croker attacked it violently, 
though his judgment was said to be biased by personal feeling, and Sir 
Archibald Alison deplored its general lack of candor. But these few pro- 
testing voices were drowned in the chorus of applause with which the liter- 
ary leaders of England and America welcomed the history. 



THE PURITANS 

We would speak of the Puritans, the most remarkable body 
of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced. The odi- 
ous and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the surface. 
He that runs may read them ; nor have there been wanting 



MACAU LAY 393 

attentive and malicious observers to point them out. For 
many years after the Restoration, they were the theme of un- 
measured invective and derision. They were exposed to the 
utmost hcentiousness ^ of the press and of the stage, at the 
time when the press and the stage were most Hcentious. They 
were not men of letters ; they were, as a body, unpopular : 
they could not defend themselves; and the public would not 
take them under its protection. They were therefore aban- 
doned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists 
and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their 
sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long 
graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they 
introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learn- 
ing, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair 
game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone 
that the philosophy of history is to be learnt. And he who 
approaches this subject should carefully guard against the in- 
fluence of that potent ridicule which has already misled so many 
excellent writers. 

Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed their 
measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed, 
out of the most unpromising materials, the finest army that 
Europe had ever seen, who trampled down King, Church, and 
Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and 
rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation 
on the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their 
absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of free- 
masonry or the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges 
were not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose 
courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations 
had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the ad- 
herents of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which 
the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we 
must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play,^ turn 

1 unrestrained license, contemptuous abuse 
^ Shakespeare's " Merchant of Venice " 



394 CATHCARVS LITERARY READER 

from the specious ^ caskets which contain only the Death's head 
and the Fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which 
conceals the treasure. 

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar 
character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and 
eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general 
terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every 
event to the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing 
was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To 
know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great 
end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious 
homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the 
soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity 
through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his in- 
tolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. 
Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. 
The difference between the greatest and the meanest of man- 
kind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless inter- 
val which separated the whole race from him on whom their own 
eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superi- 
ority but his favor ; and, confident of that favor, they despised 
all the accompHshments and all the dignities of the world. If 
they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, 
they were deeply read in the oracles of God.^ If their names 
were not found in the registers of heralds,^ they were recorded 
in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by 
a spendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had 
charge of them. 

Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their 
diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away. On 
the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked 
down with contempt : for they esteemed themselves rich in a 
more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, 
nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the 

1 superficially attractive 2 ^ ^_ t^g sacred Scriptures 

3 registers of heralds, the records of aristocratic genealogies and lineage 



MACAU LAY 395 

imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was 
a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance be- 
longed, on whose shghtest action the spirits of hght and dark- 
ness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before 
heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should 
continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. 
Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, 
had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had 
risen, and flourished^ and decayed. For his sake the Almighty 
had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist and the 
harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common 
deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been 
ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no 
earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been dark- 
ened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, 
that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring 
God. 

Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, — the one 
all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the other proud, 
calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust 
before his Maker; but he set his foot on the neck of his. king. 
In his devotional retirement he prayed with convulsions and 
groans and tears. He was half-maddened by glorious or terrible 
illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers 
of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke 
screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he 
thought himself intrusted with the scepter of the millennial year. 
Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God 
had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the 
council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous work- 
ings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. 
People w^ho saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, 
and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whin- 
ing hymns, might laugh at them. But those had litde reason to 
laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the 
field of battle. 



396 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness 
of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers 
have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which 
were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their 
feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. 
One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and 
hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and 
pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, 
their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this 
world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their 
minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them 
above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes 
might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose 
unwise means. They went through the world, like Sir Artegal's 
iron man Talus ^ with his flail, crushing and trampling down 
oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither part 
nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, 
and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be with- 
stood by any barrier. 



THE PROGRESS OF ENGLAND 

The history of England is emphatically the history of progress. 
It is the history of a constant movement in the public mind, of a 
constant change in the institutions of a great society. We see 
that society, at the beginning of the twelfth century, in a state 
more miserable than the state in which the most degraded 
nations of the East now are. We see it subjected to the tyranny 
of a handful of armed foreigners. We see a strong distinction 
of caste separating the victorious Norman from the vanquished 
Saxon. We see the great body of the population in a state of 
personal slavery. We see the most debasing and cruel super- 
stition exercising boundless dominion over the most elevated 

1 Sir Arte gal . . . 77?/?^^, characters allegorically representing Justice and 
an attendant, in Spenser's "Faerie Queene" 



MACAU LAY 397 

and benevolent minds. We see the multitude sunk in brutal 
ignorance, and the studious few engaged in acquiring what did 
not deserve the name of knowledge. 

In the course of seven centuries the wretched and degraded 
race have become the greatest and most highly civilized people 
that ever the world saw ; have spread their dominion over 
every quarter of the globe ; have scattered the seeds of mighty 
empires and republics over vast continents of which no dim in- 
timation had ever reached Ptolemy ^ or Strabo ; -^ have created 
a maritime power which would annihilate in a quarter of an 
hour the navies of Tyre, Athens, Carthage, Venice, and Genoa 
together; have carried the science of healing, the means of 
locomotion and correspondence, every mechanical art, every 
manufacture, everything that promotes the convenience of life, 
to a perfection which our ancestors would have thought magical ; 
have produced a literature which may boast of works not inferior 
to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us ; have dis- 
covered the laws which regulate the motions of the heavenly 
bodies ; have speculated with exquisite subtilty on the operations 
of the human mind ; have been the acknowledged leaders of the 
human race in the career of political improvement. 

The history of England is the history of this great change in 
the moral, intellectual, and physical state of the inhabitants of 
our own island. There is much amusing and instructive episodi- 
cal ^ matter, but this is the main action. To us, we will own, 
nothing is so interesting and delightful as to contemplate the 
steps by which the England of the Domesday Book,^ the Eng- 
land of the Curfew and the Forest Laws, the England of crusa- 
ders, monks, schoolmen, astrologers, serfs, outlaws, became the 
England which we know and love, the classic ground of liberty 
and philosophy, the school of all knowledge, the mart of all 
trade. 

1 a Greek-Egyptian astronomer of the second century 

- a Greek geographer, born about 60 B. c. 

3 incidental 

* See Webster's Dictionary. 



398 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



FROUDE 

1818- 

James Anthony Froude, the historian, was born in Devonshire, Eng- 
land, in 1818. He graduated at Oxford University, and became a Fellow of 
Exeter College. His first book, a novel entitled " The Shadows of the 
Clouds," is now forgotten. His second was entitled "The Nemesis of 




Faith," — a theological work which attracted much attention. His third 
essay, made in the field of history, was conspicuously successful. His 
" History of England " embraces the period between the fall of Wolsey 
and the death of Elizabeth, and furnishes the completest view of that time 
that has yet been written. In its preparation the author availed himself 
of a large collection of manuscripts before unused, and these threw a strong 
light upon his subject. 



FROUDE 399 

Froude is not absolutely impartial as an historian; he often gives way to 
his prejudices, and seems to turn his back upon testimony that is opposed to 
his own opinions. His treatment of the case of Mary Queen of Scots has 
been shown to be unjust. But he has admirable qualifications for historical 
writing ; his philosophical reflections are judicious, and his style is spirited 
and forcible. Some of his dramatic passages are among the finest in our 
historical literature. Although best known, in this country at least, by his 
History, Froude has written many essays on moral, social, and educational 
topics, some of which have been collected in a work entitled " Short Studies 
on Great Subjects," from which our second selection is taken. 



EXECUTION OF SIR THOMAS MORE^ 

At daybreak More was awoke '■^ by the entrance of Sir Thomas 
Pope, who had come to confirm his anticipations and to tell him 
it was the king's pleasure that he should suffer at nine o'clock 
that morning. He received the news with utter composure, '' I 
am much bounden to the king," he said, ^' for the benefits and 
honors he has bestowed on me ; and, so help me God, most of 
all I am bounden to him that it pleaseth his Majesty to rid me 
so shortly out of the miseries of this present world." 

Pope told him the king desired that he would not " use many 
words on the scaffold." "Mr. Pope," he answered, ''you do well 
to give me warning, for otherwise I had purposed somewhat to 
have spoken ; but no matter wherewith his Grace should have 
cause to be offended. Howbeit, whatever I intended, I shall 
obey his Highness's command." 

He afterwards discussed the arrangements for the funeral, at 
which he begged that his family might be present ; and when all 
was settled, Pope rose to leave him. He was an old friend. He 

1 Sir Thomas More, philosopher and statesman, author of the famous 
" Utopia," was born in London in 1480. In 1529 he was appointed Lord 
Chancellor by Henry VIIL in place of Cardinal Wolsey. More refused to 
sanction the divorce of Queen Catherine and the marriage of King Henry to 
Anne Boleyn, and for this refusal he was beheaded, July 6th, 1535. (See 
page 13.) 

2 Note the unusual form. 



400 CATHC/iRT'S LITER/I RY READER 

took More's hand and wrung it, and, quite overcome, burst into 
tears. 

" Quiet yourself, Mr. Pope," More said, '^ and be not dis- 
comfited, for I trust we shall once see each other full merrily, 
when we shall live and love together in eternal bliss." 

As soon as he was alone he dressed in his most elaborate cos- 
tume. It was for the benefit, he said, of the executioner, who 
was to do him so great a service.^ Sir William Kingston remon- 
strated, and with some difficulty "induced him to put on a plainer 
suit ; but that his intended liberality should not fail, he sent the 
man a gold angel ^ in compensation, " as a token that he maliced 
him nothing, but rather loved him extremely." 

So about nine of the clock he was brought by the Lieutenant 
out of the Tower ; his beard being long, which fashion he had 
never before used, his face pale and lean, carrying in his hands 
a red cross, casting his eyes often towards heaven. He had been 
unpopular as a judge, and one or two persons in the crowd were 
insolent to him ; but the distance was short and soon over, as all 
else was nearly over now. 

The scaffold had been awkwardly erected, and shook as he 
placed his foot upon the ladder. " See me safe up," he said to 
Kingston. " For my coming down I can shift for myself." He 
began to speak to the people, but the sheriff begged him not to 
proceed, and he contented himself with asking for their prayers, 
and desiring them to bear witness for him that he died in the 
faith of the holy Catholic Church, and a faithful servant of God 
and the king. He then repeated the Miserere psalm ^ on his 
knees ; and when he had ended and had risen, the executioner, 
with an emotion which promised ill for the manner in which his 
part in the tragedy would be accomplished, begged his forgive- 
ness. More kissed him. "Thou art to do me the greatest 
benefit that I can receive," he said. " Pluck up thy spirit, man, 
and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short. 
Take heed, therefore, that thou strike not awry for saving of thine 

1 The executioner received the clothes worn by the sufferer. 

2 an old English coin 3 Psalm li. 



FROUDE 401 

honesty." The executioner offered to tie his eyes. " I will 
cover them myself," he said ; and binding them in a* cloth which 
he had brought with him, he knelt, and laid his head upon the 
block. The fatal stroke was about to fall, when he signed for a 
moment's delay while he moved aside his beard. " Pity that 
should be cut," he murmured, " that has not committed treason." 
With which strange words, the strangest, perhaps, ever uttered at 
such a time, the lips most famous through Europe for eloquence 
and wisdom closed forever. 

" So," concludes his biographer, " with alacrity and spiritual 
joy he received the fatal ax, which no sooner had severed the 
head from the body, but his soul was carried by angels into ever- 
lasting glory, where a crown of martyrdom was placed upon him 
which can never fade nor decay ; and then he found those words 
true which he had often spoken, that a man may lose his head 
and have no harm." 

This was the execution of Sir Thomas More, an act which 
sounded out into the far corners of the earth, and was the world's 
wonder as well for the circumstances under which it was per- 
petrated, as for the preternatural ^ composure with which it was 
borne. Something of his calmness may have been due to his 
natural temperament, something to an unaffected weariness of a 
world which in his eyes was plunging into the ruin of the latter 
days. But those fair hues of sunny cheerfulness caught their 
color from the simplicity of his faith ; and never was there a 
Christian's victory over death more grandly evidenced than in 
that last scene lighted with its lambent ^ humor. 



THE BOOK OF JOB 

With the Book of Job analytical criticism has only served to 
clear up the uncertainties which have hitherto always hung about 
it. It is now considered to be beyond all doubt a genuine 

1 more than natural (Lat./r^/tr, beyond) 2 playing upon the surface 

26 



402 CATHC/IRT'S LITERARY READER 

Hebrew original, completed by its writer almost in the form in 
which it n^w remains to us. It is the most difficult of all the 
Hebrew compositions, — many words occurring in it, and many 
thoughts, not to be found elsewhere in the Bible. How difficult 
our translators found it may be seen by the number of words 
which they were obliged to insert in italics, and the doubtful ren- 
derings which they have suggested in the margin. There are 
many mythical and physical allusions scattered over the poem, 
which, in the sixteenth century, there were positively no means 
of understanding ; and perhaps, too, there were mental tendencies 
in the translators themselves which prevented them from ade- 
quately apprehending even the drift and spirit of the composition. 

The form of the story was too stringent^ to allow such 
tendencies any latitude ; but they appear, from time to time, 
sufficiently to produce serious confusion. With these recent 
assistances, therefore, we propose to say something of the nature 
of this extraordinary book, — a book of which it is to say little to 
call it unequaled of its kind, and which will one day, perhaps, 
when it is allowed to stand on its own merits, be seen towering 
up alone, far away above all the poetry of the world. How it 
found its way into the canon,^ smiting as it does through and through 
the most deeply seated Jewish prejudices, is the chief difficulty 
about it now ; to be explained only by a traditional acceptance 
among the sacred books, dating back from the old times of the 
national greatness, when the minds of the people were hewn in 
a larger type than was to be found among the Pharisees of the 
great synagogue.^ But its authorship, its date, and its history are 
alike a mystery to us ; it existed at the time when the canon was 
composed ; and this is all that we know beyond what we can 
gather out of the language and contents of the poem itself. 

The conjectures which have been formed upon the date of this 
book are so various that they show of themselves on how slight a 
foundation the best of them must rest. The language is no guide. 



1 restrictive, causing restraint 

2 the body of authoritatively adopted sacred books 

3 " the great synagogue," the Sanhedrim, or court of elders of the Jews 



FROUDE 403 

for although unquestionably of Hebrew origin, the poem bears 
no analogy to any of the other books in the Bible ; while of 
its external history nothing is known at all, except that it was 
received into the canon at the time of the great synagogue. 
Ewald ^ decides, with some confidence, that it belongs to the 
great prophetic period, and that the writer was a contemporary 
of Jeremiah. Ewald is a high authority in these matters, and 
this opinion is the one which we believe is now commonly received 
among biblical scholars. In the absence of proof, however (and 
the reasons which he brings forward are really no more than con- 
jectures), these opposite considerations may be of moment. It 
is only natural that at first thought we should ascribe the grandest 
poem in a literature to the time at which the poetry of the nation 
to which it belongs was generally at its best ; but, on reflection, 
the time when the poetry of prophecy is the richest, is not likely 
to be favorable to compositions of another kind. The prophets 
wrote in an era of decrepitude, dissolution, sin, and shame, when 
the glory of Israel was falling round them into ruin, and their 
mission, glowing as they were with the ancient spirit, was to 
rebuke, to warn, to threaten, and to promise. Finding themselves 
too late to save, and only, like Cassandra,^ despised and disre- 
garded, their voices rise up singing the swan song of a dying 
people, now falling away in the wild wailing of despondency over 
the shameful and desperate present, now swelling in triumphant 
hope that God will not leave them forever, and in his own time 
will take his chosen to himself again. But such a period is an ill 
occasion for searching into the broad problems of human destiny ; 
the present is all-important and all-absorbing ; and such a book 
as that of Job could have arisen only out of an isolation of mind, 
and life, and interest, which we can not conceive of as possible 
under such conditions. 

The more it is studied, the more the conclusion forces itself 
upon us that, let the writer have lived when he would, in his 
struggle with the central falsehood of his own people's creed, 
he must have divorced himself from them outwardly as well as 

1 a German biblical critic - See Webster's Dictionary. 



404 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

inwardly ; that he traveled away into the world, and lived long, 
perhaps all his matured life, in exile. P>erything about the book 
speaks of a person who had broken free from the narrow littleness 
of "the peculiar people." The language, as we said, is full of 
strange words. The hero of the poem is of a strange land and 
parentage, — a Gentile certainly, not a Jew. The life, the man- 
ners, the customs, are of all varieties and places : Egypt, with its 
river and its pyramids, is there ; the description of mining points 
to Phoenicia ; the settled life in cities, the nomad Arabs, the wan- 
dering caravans, the heat of the tropics, and the ice of the north, 
all are foreign to Canaan, speaking of foreign things and foreign 
people. No mention, or hint of mention, is there throughout the 
poem of Jewish traditions or Jewish certainties. We look to find 
the three friends vindicate themselves, as they so well might have 
done, by appeals to the fertile annals of Israel, to the Flood, to 
the cities of the plain, to the plagues of Egypt, or the thunders 
of Sinai. But of all this there is not a word ; they are passed by 
as if they had no existence ; and instead of them, when witnesses 
are required for the power of God, we have strange un-Hebrew 
stories of the Eastern astronomic mythology, the old wars of the 
giants, the imprisoned Orion, the wounded dragon, " the sweet 
influences of the seven stars," and the glittering fragments of the 
sea-snake Rahab trailing across the northern sky. Again, God is 
not the God of Israel, but the father of mankind ; we hear noth- 
ing of a chosen people, nothing of a special revelation, nothing 
of peculiar privileges ; and in the court of heaven there is a 
Satan, not the prince of this world and the enemy of God, but 
the angel of judgment, the accusing spirit whose mission was to 
walk to and fro over the earth, and carry up to heaven an account 
of the sins of mankind. We can not believe that thoughts of 
this kind arose out of Jerusalem in the days of Josiah. The 
scenes, the names, and the incidents are all contrived as if to 
baffle curiosity, — as if, in the very form of the poem, to teach 
us that it is no story of a single thing which happened once, but 
that it belongs to humanity itself, and is the drama of the trial of 
man, with Almighty God and the angels as the spectators of it. 



FROUDE 405 

No reader can have failed to have been struck ^ with the sim- 
phcity of the opening. Still, calm, and most majestic, it tells 
us everything which is necessary to be known in the fewest pos- 
sible words.^ The history of Job was probably a tradition in 
the East ; his name, like that of Priam in Greece, the symbol 
of fallen greatness, and his misfortunes the problem of philoso- 
phers. In keeping with the current belief, he is described as a 
model of excellence, the most perfect and upright man upon the 
earth, "and the same was the greatest man in all the East." So 
far, greatness and goodness had gone hand in hand together, as 
the popular theory required. The details of his character are 
brought out in the progress of the poem. He was " the father 
of the oppressed, and of those who had none to help them." 
When he sat as a judge in the market-places, " righteousness 
clothed him" there, and "his justice was a robe and a diadem." 
He " broke the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of 
his teeth ; " and, humble in the midst of his power, he " did not 
despise the cause of his man-servant, or his maid-servant, when 
they contended with him," knowing that " He who had made him 
had made them." Above all, he was the friend of the poor; 
"the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him," 
and he " made the widow's heart to sing for joy." 

Setting these characteristics of his daily life by the side of his 
unaffected piety, as it is described in the first chapter, we have a 
picture of the best man who could then be conceived ; not a 
hard ascetic,^ living in haughty or cowardly isolation, but a warm 
figure of flesh and blood, a man full of all human loveliness, and 
to whom God himself bears the emphatic testimony, that " there 
was none like him upon the earth, a perfect and upright man, 
who feared God and eschewed evil." 

1 "can have . . . struck:" Note the unhappy diction. 

2 " There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job ; and that 
man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." 

'^ an austere person, rigid in religiosity 



406 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

THREE AMERICAN HISTORIANS 

PRESCOTT BANCROFT— MOTLEY 

THE phrase " historical perspective " means no more 
than this, — that there must be sufficient remoteness 
of the events discussed to permit of the collection of all 
possible testimony concerning them ; to enable us to see 
the relations between things that have not before been 
thought of together ; and to allow of an examination into 
causes and conditions without bias from interest or passion. 
When we reflect that our total population only two cen- 
turies ago was less than that of some of our second-rate 
cities to-day, we may see that history, so far as it has to do 
with our own country and its people, must confine itself 
within limits that are relatively narrow. American history, 
in the true sense, is, in fact, restricted to the colonial, the 
revolutionary, and the early constitutional periods. Two of 
the most distinguished of American historians — Prescott 
and Motley, from whose works selections are here made — 
have accordingly found, in other lands and earlier times, 
themes most congenial to their peculiar aptitudes and 
talents. With one exception, — that of Draper, in his 
"Intellectual Development of Europe," — all other nota- 
ble American historians have directed their researches and 
studies to the history of our own country. 

The principal works that are devoted to the colonial 
period are the histories of New England by Palfrey and 
Fiske. Dealing specially with the wars with England are 
Lossing's two ** Field Books," Cooper's *' Naval History," 
and Fiske's ** American Revolution." General and com- 
prehensive histories of the United States are those of 
Bancroft, Hildreth, and McMaster. Still more detailed 
and exhaustive of the general subject is the '* Narrative 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 407 

and Critical History of the United States," edited and 
compiled by Mr. Justin Winsor, of Cambridge. 

Two political memoirs — those of Benton and Blaine — 
afford interesting and valuable historical materials. Of the 
many works called forth by the events and results of the 
Civil War, permanent value must attach to the volumes of 
Davis upon the Southern side, and of Grant upon the 
part of the North, though both were actors in the struggle, 
and wrote under the limitations which that fact involved. 

Biographies of leaders in public affairs have a value 
that is mainly historical. From the letters, diaries, and 
reported conversations of such men a deeper insight into 
the causes of things can be got than from the records of 
public transactions. Thus the "Autobiography" of Jef- 
ferson, John Adams's " Letters to his Wife," and the cor- 
respondence of Franklin, together with the last part of his 
" Autobiography," give not only the best idea of the men 
who wrote them, but the fullest knowledge of the affairs 
they took part in. 

American history owes much to the biographies of 
Washington by Irving, Henry C Lodge, and Chief-Justice 
Marshall ; of Franklin by James Parton and Jared Sparks ; 
of Jefferson by Parton and H. S. Randall ; of Hamilton 
by Lodge and John T. Morse ; of Samuel Adams by J. K. 
Hosmer ; and of Gonverneiir Morris by Theodore Roose- 
velt. Lives of Patrick Henry, Benedict Arnold, and La- 
fayette are contained in Sparks's series of " American 
Biographies." 



408 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

PRESCOTT 

1 796-1 859 

William Hickling Prescott, grandson of Colonel William Prescott, 
commander of the patriot troops at the battle of Bunker Hill, was born at 
Salem, Mass., in 1796, and died in 1859. He graduated from Harvard in 
1814, having won distinction by his attainments in the classics. An accident 
at college occasioned injuries which resulted finally in almost total blindness. 




He spent two years in Europe, and returned with the purpose of devoting 
himself to historical labors. His first work, "The History of Ferdinand 
and Isabella," was published in 1838, and was reprinted in France, Germany, 
and Spain. The author was soon afterwards elected a member of the Spanish 
Royal Academy of History. In 1843 he gave to the world his " History of 
the Conquest of Mexico," and m 1847 the "History of the Conquest of 
Peru." In 1850 Prescott visited Europe, traveling in Great Britain and on 
the Continent. Five years later the first two volumes, and in 1858 the third, 
of the " History of the Reign of Philip the Second of Spain " were issued ; 
but he did not live to complete the work. In addition to the histories 



PRESCOTT ' 409 

named above, Prescott contributed to our literature a volume of "Biograph- 
ical and Critical Miscellanies," which includes a valuable essay on Spanish 
Literature. 

His style is well suited to historical composition, presenting a happy 
compound of loftiness, brilliancy, and elegance. His unfinished work, " The 
History of Philip the Second," is generally accounted his best. Prescott's 
success is due in part to his genius and indomitable industry, and in part 
to the steady concentration of his powers on his several arduous under- 
takings. Many of his narrative passages are as enthralling as any romance, 
yet their author never allows himself to forget that he is writing history. 



THE VALLEY AND CITY OF MEXICO 1 

The troops, refreshed by a night's rest, succeeded, early on the 
following day, in gaining the crest of the sierra of Ahualco, which 
stretches like a curtain between the two great mountains on the 
north and south. Their progress was now comparatively easy, 
and they marched forward with a buoyant step as they felt they 
were treading the soil of Montezuma.'-^ 

They had not advanced far, when, turning an angle of the 
sierra, they suddenly came on a view which more than compen- 
sated the toils of the preceding day. It was that of the Valley 
of Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, as more commonly called by the 
natives ; which, with its picturesque assemblage of water, wood- 
land, and cultivated plains, its shining cities and shadowy hills, 
was spread out like some gay and gorgeous panorama before 
them. In the highly rarefied atmosphere of these upper regions, 
even remote objects have a brilliancy of coloring and a distinct- 
ness of outUne which seem to annihilate distance. Stretching 
far away at their feet were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, 
and cedar, and beyond, yellow fields of maize and the towering 
maguey, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens ; for 

1 from "The Conquest of Mexico " 

2 The Montezumas were the Aztec, or native, rulers of Mexico. They 
built fine cities and temples, and were able and powerful monarchs In 1519 
Cortez with an army of Spaniards invaded the country and conquered it. 



4IO • CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

flowers, in such demand for their rehgious festivals, were even 
more abimdant in this populous valley than in other parts of 
Anahuac. In the center of the great basin were beheld the 
lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of its surface than 
at present ; their borders thickly studded with towns and hamlets, 
and, in the midst, like some Indian empress with her coronal of 
pearls, — the fair city of Mexico, with her white towers and 
pyramidal temples, reposing, as it were, on the bosom of the 
waters, — the far-famed ''Venice of the Aztecs." High over 
all rose the royal hill of Chapultepec, the residence of the Mex- 
ican monarchs, crowned with the same grove of gigantic cypresses 
which at this day fling their broad shadows over the land. In 
the distance beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly 
screened by intervening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the 
rival capital of Tezcuco, and still farther on, the dark belt of 
porphyry, girdling the valley around, like a rich setting which 
Nature had devised for the fairest of her jewels. 

Such was the beautiful vision which broke on the eyes of the 
Conquerors. And even now, when so sad a change has come 
over the scene ; when the stately forests have been laid low, and 
the soil, unsheltered from the fierce radiance of a tropical sun, is 
in many places abandoned to sterility ; when the waters have re- 
tired, leaving a broad and ghastly margin white with the incrus- 
tation of salts, while the cities and hamlets on their borders have 
moldered into ruins, — even now that desolation broods over the 
landscape, so indestructible are the lines of beauty which Nature 
has traced on its features, that no traveler, however cold, can 
gaze on them with any other emotions than those of astonishment 
and rapture. 

What, then, must have been the emotions of the Spaniards 
when, after working their toilsome way into the upper air, the 
cloudy tabernacle parted before their eyes, and they beheld these 
fair scenes in all their pristine magnificence and beauty? It was 
like the spectacle which greeted the eyes of Moses from the sum- 
mit of Pisgah, and, in the warm glow of their feelings, they cried 
out, " It is the promised land ! " 



PRESCOTT 411 

But these feelings of admiration were soon followed by others 
of a very different complexion, as they saw in all this the evi- 
dences of a civilization and power far superior to anything they 
had yet encountered. The more timid, disheartened by the 
prospect, shrunk from a contest so unequal, and demanded, as 
they had done on some former occasions, to be led back again 
to Vera Cruz. Such was not the effect produced on the sanguine 
spirit of the general.^ His avarice was sharpened by the display 
of the dazzling spoil at his feet ; and if he felt a natural anxiety 
at the formidable odds, his confidence was renewed as he gazed 
on the lines of his veterans, whose weather-beaten visages and 
battered armor told of battles won and difficulties surmounted, 
while his bold barbarians, with appetites whetted by the view of 
their enemies' country, seemed like eagles on the mountains, 
ready to pounce upon their prey. By argument, entreaty, and 
menace he endeavored to restore the faltering courage of the 
soldiers, urging them not to think of retreat, now that they had 
reached the goal for which they had panted, and the golden gates 
were opened to receive them. In these efforts he was well 
seconded by the brave cavaliers, who held honor as dear to them 
as fortune ; until the dullest spirits caught somewhat of the enthu- 
siasm of their leaders, and the general had the satisfaction to see 
his hesitating columns, with their usual buoyant step once more 
on their march down the slopes of the sierra. 



THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA 

It is not easy at this time to comprehend the impulse given 
to Europe by the discovery of America. It was not the gradual 
acquisition of some border territory, a province or a kingdom, 
that had been gained, but a new world that was now thrown open 
to the European. The races of animals, the mineral treasures, 
the vegetable forms, and the varied aspects of nature, man in the 

^ Cortez 



412 C/ITHCART'S LITERARY READER 

different phases of civilization, filled the mind with entirely new 
sets of ideas, that changed the habitual current of thought, and 
stimulated it to indefinite conjecture. The eagerness to explore 
the wonderful secrets of the new hemisphere became so active 
that the principal cities of Spain were, in a manner, depopulated, 
as emigrants thronged one after another to take their chance upon 
the deep. It was a world of romance that was thrown open ; 
for, whatever might be the luck of the adventurer, his reports on 
his return were tinged with a coloring of romance that stimulated 
still higher the sensitive fancies of his countrymen, and nourished 
the chimerical sentiments of an age of chivalry. They listened 
with attentive ears to tales of Amazons, which seemed to realize ^ 
the classic legends of antiquity ; to stories of Patagonian giants ; 
to flaming pictures of an E/ Dorado (Golden Land), where the 
sands sparkled with gems, and golden pebbles as large as birds' 
eggs were dragged in nets out of the rivers. 

Yet that the adventurers were no impostors, but dupes, too 
easy dupes, of their own credulous fancies, is shown by the ex- 
travagant character of their enterprises ; by expeditions in search 
of the magical Fountain of Health, of the golden Temple of 
Doboyba, of the golden Sepulchers of Yenu, — for gold was ever 
floating before their distempered vision, and the name of Castilla 
del Oro (Golden Castle), the most unhealthy and unprofitable 
region of the Isthmus, held out a bright promise to the unfor- 
tunate settler, who too frequently instead of gold found there 
only his grave. 

In this realm of enchantment all the accessories served to 
maintain the illusion. The simple natives, with their defenceless 
bodies and rude weapons, were no match for the European war- 
rior, armed to the teeth in mail. The odds were as great as those 
found in any legend of chivalry, where the lance of the good 
knight overturned hundreds at a touch. The perils that lay in 
the discoverer's path, and the sufferings he had to sustain, were 
scarcely inferior to those that beset the knight- errant. Hunger 
and thirst and fatigue, the deadly effluvia of the morass, with its 

1 i. e. make real ; hence, to convert from fable to fact 



PRESCOTT 413 

swarms of venomous insects, the cold of mountain snows, and 
the scorching sun of the tropics, — these were the lot of every 
cavaHer who came to seek his fortunes in the New World. It 
was the reality of romance. The life of the Spanish adventurer 
was one chapter more, and not the least remarkable, in the 
chronicles of knight-errantry. 

The character of the warrior took somewhat of the exaggerated 
coloring shed over his exploits. Proud and vainglorious, swelled 
with lofty anticipations of his destiny, and an invincible confi- 
dence in his own resources, no danger could appall and no toil 
could tire him. The greater the danger, indeed, the higher the 
charm ; for his soul reveled in excitement, and the enterprise 
without peril wanted that spur of romance which was necessary 
to rouse his energies into action. Yet in the motives of action 
meaner influences were strangely mingled with the loftier, the 
temporal with the spiritual. Gold was the incentive and the 
recompense, and in the pursuit of it his inflexible nature rarely 
hesitated as to the means. His courage was sullied with cruelty, 
the cruelty that flowed equally, strange as it may seem, from his 
avarice and his religion ; religion as it was understood in that 
age, — the religion of the Crusader. It was the convenient cloak 
for a multitude of sins, which covered them even from himself. 
The Castilian, too proud for hypocrisy, committed more cruelties 
in the name of religion than were ever practised by the pagan 
idolater or the fanatical Moslem. The burning of the infidel was 
a sacrifice acceptable to Heaven, and the conversion of those 
who survived amply atoned for the foulest offenses. It is a 
melancholy and mortifying consideration that the most uncom- 
promising spirit of intolerance — the spirit of the Inquisitor at 
home, and of the Crusader abroad — should have emanated from 
a religion which preached '' peace upon earth, and good-will 
towards man ! " 

What a contrast did these children of southern Europe present 
to the Anglo-Saxon races, who scattered themselves along the 
great northern division of the Western Hemisphere ! For the 
principle of action with these latter was not avarice, nor 



414 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

the more specious pretext of proselytism ; ^ but independence, — 
independence religious and political. To secure this, they were 
content to earn a bare subsistence by a life of frugality and toil. 
They asked nothing from the soil but the reasonable returns of 
their own labor. No golden visions threw a deceitful halo 
around their path, and beckoned them onwards through seas of 
blood to the subversion of an unoffending dynasty. They were 
content with the slow but steady progress of their social polity.^ 
They patiently endured the privations of the wilderness, watering 
the tree of liberty with their tears and with the sweat of their 
brow, till it took deep root in the land and sent up its branches 
high towards the heavens, while the communities of the neigh- 
boring continent, shooting up into the sudden splendors of a 
tropical vegetation, exhibited, even in their prime, the sure 
symptoms of decay. 

It would seem to have been especially ordered by Providence 
that the discovery of the two great divisions of the American 
hemisphere should fall to the two races best fitted to conquer 
and colonize them. Thus the northern section was consigned 
to the Anglo-Saxon race, whose orderly, industrious habits found 
an ample field for development under its colder skies and on its 
more rugged soil; while the southern portion, with its rich 
tropical products and treasures of mineral wealth, • held out the 
most attractive bait to invite the enterprise of the Spaniard. 
How different might have been the result, if the bark of Colum- 
bus had taken a more northerly direction, as he at one time 
meditated, and landed its band of adventurers on the shores 
of what is now free America. 

1 the making of converts ^ constitution, organization 



BANCROFT 



415 



BANCROFT 

1 800-1 891 

George Bancroft was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1800, and 
died in 1891. In 181 7 he graduated at Harvard, bearing off, despite his 
tender age, the second honors of his class. The next year he went to Ger- 
many, where he studied under the direction of Heeren, Schlosser, and other 
eminent scholars. In 1823 he made his first public literary essay in a volume 



rr'. 






ji 



t>" --^il 




of poems, and in the next year put forth a translation of Heeren's " Reflec- 
tions on the Politics of Ancient Greece." About this time he associated him- 
self with the late Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell in the establishment of the Round 
Hill School at Northampton. The life of a teacher, however, proved uncon- 
genial to him, although the school enjoyed a fair degree of prosperity. He 
next turned his attention to historical study and the discussion of public 
questions. In 1838 he was appointed Collector of the Port of Boston ; he 
was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 1844, and in 
1845 was made Secretary of the Navy. This office he held about a year, 



4l6 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

effecting many reforms in the department. In 1846 he became Minister to 
England, and remained abroad till 1849. From that time till the date of his 
appointment as Minister to Berlin by President Grant, he devoted himself to 
the completion of his "History of the United States." 

The first volume of this work had been published in 1S34, and the suc- 
ceeding volumes followed at long intervals. In preparing those volumes 
which treat of the years immediately preceding the Revolution, he had the 
use of a vast number of manuscripts to which no earlier historian had access. 
His natural qualifications, reinforced by wide reading, for the historian's 
work were exceptionally great. It has been charged by some English critics 
that his democratic prejudices are too manifest in his History; but this 
allegation has had little weight with his own countrymen. His style is 
scholarly yet not pedantic, in narrative animated and picturesque, and in 
philosophical passages weighty and temperate. 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 

All the disasters which had been encountered, far from dimin- 
ishing the boldness of De Soto/ served only to confirm his obsti- 
nacy by wounding his pride. Should he, who had promised 
greater booty than Mexico or Peru had yielded, now return as a 
defeated fugitive, so naked that his troops were clad only in skins 
and mats of ivy? The search for some wealthy region was 
renewed ; the caravan marched still farther to the west. 

For seven days it struggled through a wilderness of forests and 
marshes, and at length came to Indian settlements in the vicinity 
of the Mississippi. The lapse of nearly three centuries has not 
changed the character of the stream. It was then described as 
more than a mile broad, flowing with a strong current, and, by 
the weight of its waters, forcing a channel of great depth. The 
water was always muddy ; trees and timber were continually float- 
ing down the stream. 

The Spaniards were guided to the Mississippi by the natives ; 
and were directed to one of the usual crossing-places, probably at 



1 Fernando de Soto, the Spanish explorer, discovered the Mississippi 
River in 1541, and died in Louisiana the year following. 



By^NCROFT 417 

the lowest Chickasa Bluff, not far from the thirty-fifth parallel of 
latitude. The arrival of the strangers awakened curiosity and 
fear. A multitude of people from the western banks of the river, 
painted and gayly decorated with great plumes of white feathers, 
the warriors standing in rows with bow and arrows in their hands, 
the chieftains sitting under awnings as magnificent as the artless 
manufactures of the natives could weave, came rowing down the 
stream in a fleet of two hundred canoes, seeming to the admiring 
Spaniards " like a fair army of galleys." 

They brought gifts of fish and loaves made of the fruit of the 
persimmon. At first they showed some desire to offer resistance ; 
but, soon becoming conscious of their relative weakness, they 
ceased to defy an enemy who could not be overcome, and suf- 
fered injury without attempting open retaliation. The boats of 
the natives were too weak to transport horses • almost a month 
expired before barges large enough to hold three horsemen each 
were constructed for crossing the river. At length the Spaniards 
embarked upon the Mississippi, and were borne to its western 
bank. 

The Dacotah tribes, doubtless, then occupied the country 
southwest of the Missouri. De Soto had heard its praises ; he 
believed in its vicinity to mineral wealth, and he determined to 
visit its towns. In ascending the Mississippi the party was often 
obliged to wade through morasses ; at length they came, as it 
would seem, upon the district of Little Prairie, and the dry and 
elevated lands which extend towards New Madrid.^ 

Here the rehgions of the invaders and the natives came in 
contrast. The Spaniards were adored as children of the Sun, 
and the blind were brought into their presence, to be healed by 
the sons of light. " Pray only to God, who is in heaven, for 
whatsoever ye need," said De Soto in reply; and the sublime 
doctrine which, thousands of years before, had been proclaimed 
in the deserts of Arabia, now first found its way into the prairies 
of the Far West. 

^ /. e. the vicinity of what is now sontheastern Missouri 
27 



4l8 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

The wild fruits of that region were abundant ; the pecan-nut, 
the mulberry, and the two kinds of wild plums, furnished the 
natives with articles of food. At Pacaha, the northernmost point 
which De Soto reached near the Mississippi, he remained forty 
days. The spot can not be identified ; but the accounts of the 
amusements of the Spaniards confirm the truth of the narrative 
of their ramblings. Fish were taken, such as are now found 
in the fresh waters of that region ; one of them, the spade-fish, 
— the strangest and most whimsical production of the muddy 
streams of the west, so rare that, even now, it is hardly to be 
found in any museum, — is accurately described by the best 
historian of the expedition. 

An exploring party, which was sent to examine the regions to 
the north, reported that they were almost a desert. The country 
still nearer the Missouri was said by the Indians to be thinly 
inhabited ; the bison abounded there so much that no maize 
could be cultivated, and the few inhabitants were hunters. De 
Soto turned, therefore, to the west and northwest, and plunged 
still more deeply into the interior of the continent. The high- 
lands of White River, more than two hundred miles from 
the Mississippi, were probably the limit of his ramble in this 
direction. 

The mountains offered neither gems nor gold ; and the disap- 
pointed adventurers marched to the south. They passed through 
a succession of towns, of which the position can not be fixed, till 
at length we find them among the Tunicas, near the hot springs 
and saline tributaries of the Washita. It was at Autiamque, a town 
on the same river, that they passed the winter ; they had arrived 
at the settlement through the country of the Kappaws. 

The native tribes, everywhere on the route, were found in a 
state of civilization beyond that of nomadic hordes. They were 
an agricultural people, with fixed places of abode, and subsisted 
upon the produce of the fields more than upon the chase. Igno- 
rant of the arts of life, they could offer no resistance to their 
unwelcome visitors ; the bow and arrow were the most effective 
weapons with which they were acquainted. They seem not to 



BANCROFT 419 

have been turbulent or quarrelsome ; but as the population was 
moderate, and the earth fruitful, the tribes were not accustomed 
to contend with each other for the possession of territories. 

Their dress was, in part, mats wrought of ivy and bulrushes, 
or of the bark and lint of trees ; in cold weather they wore 
mantles woven of feathers. The settlements were by tribes, — 
each tribe occupied what the Spaniards called a province ; their 
villages were generally near together, but were composed of few 
habitations. The Spaniards treated them with no other forbear- 
ance than their own selfishness demanded, and enslaved such as 
offended, employing them as porters and guides. 

On a slight suspicion, they would cut off the hands of numbers 
of the natives,,for punishment or intimidation; while the young 
cavaliers, from desire of seeming valiant, ceased to be merciful, 
and exulted in cruelties and carnage.^ The guide who was unsuc- 
cessful, or who purposely led them away from the settlements of 
his tribe, would be seized and thrown to the hounds. Sometimes 
a native was condemned to the flames. Any trifling considera- 
tion of safety would induce the governor to set fire to a hamlet. 
He did not delight in cruelty ; but the happiness, the life, and the 
rights of the Indians were held of no account. The approach 
of the Spaniards was heard with dismay, and their departure 
hastened by the suggestion of wealthier lands at a distance. 

In the spring of the following year De Soto determined to 
descend the Washita to its junction,^ and to get tidings of the sea. 
As he advanced he was soon lost amidst the bayous and marshes 
which are found along the Red River and its tributaries. Near 
the Mississippi he came upon the country of Nilco,^ which was 
well peopled. The river was there larger than the Guadalquivir 
at Seville. At last he arrived at the province where the Washita, 
already united with the Red River, enters the Mississippi. The 
province was called Guachoya.^ 



1 Etymology ? 

2 i. e. with the Mississippi, as De Soto then supposed 

^^ JVilco, Guachoya, — these are the Spanish spellings of Indian sounds. 



420 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

De Soto anxiously inquired the distance to the sea ; the chief- 
tain of Guachoya could not tell. Were there settlements extend- 
ing along the river to its mouth ? It was answered that its lower 
banks were an uninhabited waste. UnwiUing to believe so dis- 
heartening a tale, De Soto sent one of his men with eight horse- 
men to descend the banks of the Mississippi and explore the 
.country. They traveled eight days, and were able to advance 
I not much more than thirty miles, they were so delayed by the 
I frequent bayous, the impassable canebrakes, and the dense 
woods. 

The governor received the intelligence with concern ; he suf- 
fered from anxiety and gloom. His horses and men were dying 
around him, so that the natives were becoming dangerous ene- 
mies. He attempted to overawe a tribe of Indians near Natchez 
by claiming a supernatural birth, and demanding obedience and 
tribute. ''You say you are the child of the Sun," repHed the 
undaunted chief; " dry up the river, and I will believe you. Do 
you desire to see me? Visit the town where I dwell. If you 
come in peace, I will receive you with special good-will ; if in 
war, I will not shrink one foot back." 

But De Soto was no longer able to abate the confidence ^ or 
punish the temerity of the natives. His stubborn pride was 
changed by long disappointments into a wasting melancholy, 
and his health sunk rapidly and entirely under a conflict of 
emotions. A malignant fever ensued, during which he had little 
comfort, and was neither visited nor attended as the last hours of 
life demand. Believing his death near at hand, he held the last 
solemn inter\new with his faithful followers ; and yielding to the 
wishes of his companions, who obeyed him to the end, he named 
a successor. On the next day he died.* 

1 assurance, self-reliance 

2 The surviving members of this expedition built boats and found their 
way down the Mississippi to the Gulf. 



MOTLEY 



421 



MOTLEY 

1814- 1877 

John Lothrop Motley, the historian, was born in Dorchester, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1814, and died in England in June, 1877. Graduating at 
Harvard College at the age of seventeen, he went to Europe, where he spent 
several years in preparation for a task to which he had early devoted him- 
self, — the writing of a " History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic." 




^fUAlsL^. 



Young as he was, he had already produced two romances, "Morton's 
Hope ; or, The Memoirs of a Provincial," and '* Merry-Mount : A Romance 
of the Massachusetts Colony," — both long since forgotten. After fifteen 
years of arduous labor he finished his " History," and its reception on both 
sides of the Atlantic was exceptionally cordial. Everett said of it that it was, 
in his judgment, "a work of the highest merit," and placed "the name of 
Motley by the side of those of our great American historical trio, — Ban- 
croft, Irving, and Prescott." The success of this History — the work of a 



422 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

young and unknown writer — was immediate. Motley at once set about a 
new enterprise, the results of which appear in " The History of the United 
Netherlands," in which the career of the young nation, the story of whose 
birth had been told in the previous work, is described with equal spirit and 
accuracy. In 1874 Motley's third historical work, "The Life and Death of 
John of Barneveld," was published; and at the time of his death he was 
at work on a " History of the Thirty Years' War." 

In common with the eminent historians with whom Everett classed him, 
Motley possessed in rare combination the highest intellectual qualifications 
for his work. He was especially remarkable for a certain breadth of mind 
which impelled him to take comprehensive and exhaustive views of his 
subject. His style is full of vigor and grace, and in dramatic quality it is 
surpassed by that of no other historian of this century. It would be, per- 
haps, impossible to indicate any other historical works than his, of compar- 
atively modern issue, touching which the judgment of critics has been so 
generally favorable. Some foreign reviewers have charged him with exces- 
sive severity in his denunciation of Spanish despotism ; but with this 
exception, his candor and conscientious accuracy have never been im- 
pugned. Motley was appointed United States Minister to Austria by Presi- 
dent Lincoln, and was later transferred to England, where he represented 
the American government with conspicuous ability. 



HISTORIC PROGRESS 

We talk of History. No man can more highly appreciate 
than I do the noble labors of your Society/ and of others in this 
country, for the preservation of memorials belonging to our brief 
but most important past. We can never collect too much of 
them, nor ponder them too carefully, for they mark the era of 
a new civilization. But that interesting past presses so closely 
upon our sight that it seems still a portion of the present ; the 
glimmering dawn preceding the noontide of to-day. 

I shall not be misunderstood, then, if I say that there is no 
such thing as human history. Nothing can be more profoundly, 
sadly true. The annals of mankind have never been written, 



1 The selection is from an address delivered before the New York Histori- 
cal Society in December 1868, the subject being " Historic Progress and 
American Democracy." 



MOTLEY 423 

never can be written ; nor would it be within human capacity 
to read them if they were written. We have a leaf or two torn 
from the great book of human fate as it flutters in the storm- 
winds ever sweeping across the earth. We decipher them as 
we best can with purblind eyes, and endeavor to learn their mys- 
tery as we float along to the abyss ; but it is all confused bal)ble, 
hieroglyphics of which the key is lost. Consider but a moment. 
The island on which this city stands is as perfect a site as man 
could desire for a great commercial, imperial city. Byzantium,^ 
which the lords of the ancient world built for the capital of the 
earth ; which the temperate and vigorous Turk in the days of 
his stern military discipline plucked from the decrepit hands 
which held the scepter of Caesar and Constantine, and for the 
succession to which the present lords of Europe are wrangling, 
— not Byzantium, nor hundred-gated Thebes,^ nor London nor 
Liverpool, Paris nor Moscow, can surpass the future certainties 
of this thirteen- mile-long Manhattan. 

And yet it was but yesterday — for what are two centuries 
and a half in the boundless vista of the past ? — that the Mohawk 
and the Mohican were tomahawking and scalping each other 
throughout these regions, and had been doing so foi* centuries ; 
while the whole surface of this island, now groaning under mil- 
lions of wealth which oppress the imagination, hardly furnished 
a respectable hunting-ground for a single sachem, in his war- 
paint and moccasins, who imagined himself proprietor of the 
soil. 

But yesterday Cimmerian ^ darkness, primeval night. To-day, 
grandeur, luxury, wealth, power. I come not here to-night to 
draw pictures or pour forth dithyrambics * that I may gratify 

1 This was the orighial name of Constantinople. The beauty and con- 
venience of its situation were observed by the Emperor Constantine, who 
made it the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire a. d. 328, and called it 
Constantinopolis, z. <?. the City of Constantine. 

2 a great city of Egypt, formerly the capital of that country, now in ruins 
which extend for seven miles along both banks of the Nile 

^ the Cimmerii were fabled cave-dwellers 
* enthusiastic strains 



424 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

your vanity or my own, whether municipal or national. To ap- 
preciate the unexampled advantages bestowed by the Omnipo- 
tent upon this favored republic, this youngest child of civilization, 
is rather to oppress the thoughtful mind with an overwhelming 
sense of responsibility ; to sadden with quick-coming fears ; to 
torture with reasonable doubts. The world's great hope is here. 
The future of humanity — at least for that cycle in which we 
are now revolving — depends mainly upon the manner in which 
we deal with our great trust. 

The good old times ! Where and when were those good old 

times? 

" All times when old are good," 
says Byron. 

'* And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death," 

says the great master of morals and humanity. But neither fools 
nor sages, neither individuals nor nations, have any other light 
to guide them along the track which all must tread, save that 
long, glimmering vista of yesterdays which grows so swiftly fainter 
and fainter as the present fades into the past. And I believe it 
possible to discover a law out of all this apparently chaotic whirl 
and bustle, this tangled skein of human affairs, as it spins itself 
through the centuries. That law is Progress, — slow, confused, 
contradictory, but ceaseless development, intellectual and moral, 
of the human race. 

It is of Human Progress that I speak to-night. It is of Prog- 
ress that I find a startling result when I survey the spectacle 
which the American Present displays. This nation stands on 
the point towards which other people are moving, — the start- 
ing-point, not the goal. It has put itself — or rather destiny 
has placed it — more immediately than other nations in subor- 
dination to the law governing all bodies political as inexorably as 
Kepler's law controls the motions of the planets. The law is 
Progress ; the result. Democracy. 

Sydney Smith once alluded, if I remember rightly, to a person 
who allowed himself to speak disrespectfully of the equator. I 
have a strong objection to be suspected of flattering the equator. 



MOTLEY 425 

Yet were it not for that little angle of 23° 27' 26", which it is 
good enough to make with the plane of the ecliptic, the history 
of this earth and of " all which it inherit " ^ would have been 
essentially modified, even if it had not been altogether a blank. 
Out of the obliquity of the equator has come forth our civiliza- 
tion. It was long ago observed by one of the most thoughtful 
writers that ever dealt with human history, John von Herder, 
that it was to the gradual shading away of zones and alterna- 
tion of seasons that the vigor and variety of mankind were 
attributable. 

I have asked where and when were the good old times? This 
earth of ours has been spinning about in space, great philosophers 
tell us, some few hundred millions of years. We are not very 
familiar with our predecessors on this continent. For the present, 
the oldest inhabitant must be represented here by the man of 
Natchez, whose bones were unearthed not long ago under the 
Mississippi bluffs in strata which were said to argue him to be at 
least one hundred thousand years old. Yet he is a mere modern, 
a parvenu ^ on this planet, if we are to trust illustrious teachers 
of science, compared with the men whose bones and v/hose im- 
plements have been found in high mountain-valleys and gravel- 
pits of Europe ; while these again are thought by the same 
authorities to be descendants of races which flourished many 
thousands of years before, and whose relics science is confidently 
expecting to discover, although the icy sea had once ingulfed 
them and their dwelling-places. 

We of to-day have no filial interest in the man of Natchez. 
He was no ancestor of ours, nor have he and his descendants 
left traces along the dreary track of their existence to induce a 
desire to claim relationship with them. We are Americans ; but 
yesterday we were Europeans, — Netherlanders, Saxons, Nor- 
mans, Swabians, Celts ; and the day before yesterday, Asiatics, 
Mongolians, what you will. 

^ . . . The great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve. — Tempest, iv. i. 
2 upstart, mere newcomer 



426 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

The orbit of civilization, so far as our perishing records enable 
us to trace it, seems preordained from East to West. China, 
India, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, Rome, are successively lighted 
up as the majestic orb of day moves over them; and as he 
advances still farther through his storied and mysterious zodiac, 
we behold the shadows of evening as surely falling on the lands 
which he leaves behind him. Man still reeled on, — falling, ris- 
ing again, staggering forward with hue and cry at his heels, — a 
wounded felon daring to escape from the prison to which the 
grace of God had inexorably doomed him. And still there was 
progress. Besides the sword, two other instruments grew every 
day more potent, — the pen and the purse. 

The power of the pen soon created a stupendous monopoly. 
Clerks obtained privilege of murder because of their learning ; a 
Norman king gloried in the appellation of '' fine clerk," because 
he could spell ; the sons of serfs and washerwomen became high 
pontiffs, put their feet on the necks of emperors, through the 
might of education, and appalled the souls of tyrants with their 
weird anathemas. Naturally, the priests kept the talisman of 
learning to themselves. How should education help them to 
power and pelf, if the people could participate in the mystic 
spell? The icy Deadhand of the Church, ever extended, was 
filled to overflowing by trembling baron and superstitious hind. 

But there was another power steadily augmenting, — the magic 
purse of Fortunatus, with its clink of perennial gold. Commerce 
changed clusters of hovels, cowering for protection under feudal 
castles, into powerful cities. Burghers wrested or purchased 
liberties from their lords and masters. And still man struggled 
on. An experimenting friar, fond of chemistry, in one corner of 
Europe, put niter, sulphur, and charcoal together ; ^ a sexton or 
doctor, in another obscure nook, carved letters on blocks of 
wood ; ^ and lo ! there were explosions shaking the solid earth, 
and causing the iron-clad man on horseback to reel in his saddle. 



1 Roger Bacon, the English philosopher, born in 12 14 

2 Gutenberg, born in Germany about 1400, was the first to print from 
letters cut on blocks of wood and metal 



MOTLEY 



427 



It was no wonder that Dr. Faustus ^ was supposed to have sold 
his soul to the fiend. Whence but from devilish alliance could 
he have derived such power to strike down the grace of God ? 

Speech, the alphabet, Mount Sinai, Egypt, Greece, Rome, 
Nazareth, the wandering of the nations, the feudal system. Magna 
Charta, gunpowder, printing, the Reformation, the mariner's 
compass, America, — here are some of the great landmarks of 
human motion. As we pause for a moment's rest, after our rapid 
sweep through the eons and the centuries, have we not the 
right to record proof of man's progress since the days of the 
rhinoceros-eaters of Bedfordshire, of the man of Natchez ? 

And for details and detached scenes in the general phantasma- 
goria, which has been ever shifting before us, we may seek for 
illustration, instruction, or comfort in any age or land where 
authentic record can be found. We may take a calm survey of 
passionate,^emocratic Greece in her great civil war, through the 
terse, judicial narrative of Thucydides ; ^ we may learn to loathe 
despotism in that marvelous portrait-gallery of crime which the 
somber and terrible Tacitus ^ has bequeathed ; we may cross the 
yawning abysses and dreary deserts which lie between two civi- 
lizations over that stately viaduct of a thousand arches which the 
great hand of Gibbon has constructed ; we may penetrate to the 
inmost political and social heart of England, during a period of 
nine years, by help of the magic wand of Macaulay ; we may 
linger in the stately portico to the unbuilt dome which the daring 
genius of Buckle ^ consumed his life in devising ; we may yield to 
the sweet fascinations which ever dwell in the picturesque pages 
of Prescott ; we may investigate rules, apply and ponder examples : 
but the detail of history is essentially a blank, and nothing could 
be more dismal than its pursuit, unless the mind be filled by a 
broad view of its general scheme. 



^ See Webster for an account of " Dr. Faustus " and Johann Fust. 

2 A Greek historian, born 471 B. c. 

3 A Roman historian, born about 55 A. D. His " Annals " cover the years 
from the death of Augustus, A. D. 14, to that of Nero, A. d. 68. 

4 Henry Thomas Buckle (1822-1862), author of an unfinished " History of 
Civilization in England." 



428 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

BRITISH SCIENTISTS 

LYELL — TYNDALL — HUXLEY 

What is called "natural law" is simply the general 
conception in which a series of processes that recur with 
invariable likeness may be embraced. Accordingly, every 
such law that we know has been discovered from the 
observation of facts. Two centuries ago the universality 
of natural law was not broadly comprehended; we now 
expect, as much as we expect to-morrow's sunrise, that 
natural phenomena will always and with exactness con- 
form themselves to law. Not until we find out the law 
by which any set of phenomena is regulated can we fully 
understand the phenomena themselves, — have scientific 
knowledge of them. 

Science, in the full meaning of the term, includes every 
department of systematized knowledge of physical nature 
and its phenomena. It therefore embraces the whole of 
mathematics, chemistry, physics, as well as zoology and 
botany, which are commonly joined under the name of 
" natural history." 

When Newton scattered the clouds which enveloped 
man's early ideas of the universe, by establishing the con- 
ception of continuous change as going on throughout the 
whole of Nature, then Science in the modern sense came 
into being. The greatest of the general laws that have 
been established since his time are these : — 
- I. That matter is immutable; that is, that elementary 
substances are indestructible, unalterable in mass and in 
properties. From every condition into which they may 
have been converted they can invariably be isolated, and 
recover those qualities which they previously possessed 
in the free state. 



BRITISH SCIENTISTS 429 

IT. That force is indestructible ; that is, that the total 
energy of any material system is a quantity which can not 
be either increased or diminished in any action between 
the parts of the system. 

III. That all forces are forces of motion, and are meas- 
urable by the same standard. Thus heat, light, electricity, 
magnetism, and chemical affinity are but modes of motion, 
and are convertible each into the others. 

IV. That changes such as are now going on in the 
condition of the earth's crust would, if conceived to have 
operated throughout vast periods of time, afford a full 
solution of all the problems of geology. 

V. That all living species have been derived, by grad- 
ual modifications in successive generations, from earlier 
and simpler organisms. 

With the discovery of the second and third of these laws 
are associated the names of Grove and Joule, Eminent 
among British geologists are Lyell, Buckland, and Hugh 
Miller. In the same year (1858), and independently of 
each other, Darwin and Wallace published their theory 
of '* natural selection " in its influence on the evolution of 
species. 

Great names connected with the progress of Astronomy 
in the present century are, Sir David Brewster, Sir John 
Herschel, Joseph N. Lockyer, and Thomas Young; of 
Chemistry, Sir Humphrey Davy and Michael Faraday; of 
Botany, John Lindley, Charles Darwin, and Sir William 
Hooker; and of Natural History, Darwin, Alfred Russel 
Wallace, Sir John Lubbock, and St. George Mivart. 

Foremost among recent philosophers is Herbert Spen- 
cer. He has dealt with che whole doctrine of Evolution, 
showing that it is the central thought of modern biology, 
and that as such it has vastly and permanently influenced 
the progress of science. 



430 



Cy4TH CARTS LITERARY READER 



LYELL 

1797-1875 

Sir Charles Lyell, the English geologist, was born in 1797, and died 
in 1875. -^^ ranks among the foremost of scientific discoverers and writers 
of the present century. His best-known works, " The Principles of Geology," 
" The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man," " Travels in North 









America," and its sequel, " A Second Visit to the United States," have been 
widely read in this country, and valued for their candid views of American 
institutions, as well as for the vast fund of geological information which they 
contain. His style is well suited to scientific exposition, and invests his 
books with a charm which is rarely found in works of this character. 

Miss Arabella B. Buckley, the distinguished naturalist, says of Lyell's 
influence on the development of modern science : " His early study of natu- 
ral history gave him advantages possessed by few of his contemporaries, 



LYELL 431 

while the clear insight and calm judgment for which he was remarkable led 
him alone of the younger school of geologists to grasp the truth enunciated 
by Hutton of the power of gradual changes to produce great results if only 
time enough be allowed. This truth he illustrated with such a wealth of 
facts, derived from his own observation and that of others, that in the first 
edition of the 'Principles' we find sketched in broad outline, and demon- 
strated by actual examples, nearly all those fundamental truths which, though 
often vehemently opposed at the time, have now become so much the 
accepted basis of geology that it is difficult to realize how novel they were 
in 1830. . . . 

" By recognizing the value of the new principle of natural selection, accord- 
ing to the evidence adduced by Darwin and Wallace, and incorporating its 
results in his 'Principles of Geology,' Lyell completed in 1872, in a fuller 
sense than he had contemplated in 1850, the task of 'explaining former 
changes of the earth's surface (including the history of its living inhabitants) 
by reference to causes now in action ; ' while at the same time he gave to his 
original conception that element of expansion and pliability which was alone 
needed to insure its continued influence and the permanent celebrity of its 
author." 



THE DISMAL SWAMP 

There are many swamps or morasses in this low, fiat region, 
and one of the largest of these occurs between the towns of 
Norfolk and Weldon. We traversed several miles of its north- 
ern extremity on the railway, which is supported on piles. It 
bears the appropriate and very expressive name of the '* Great 
Dismal," and is no less than forty miles in length from north to 
south, and twenty-five miles in its greatest width from east to 
west, the northern half being situated in Virginia, the southern 
in North Carolina. I observed that the water was obviously in 
motion in several places, and the morass had somewhat the 
appearance of a broad inundated river-plain, covered with all 
kinds of aquatic trees and shrubs, the soil being as black as in 
a peat-bog. The accumulation of vegetable matter going on 
here in a hot climate, over so vast an area, is a subject of such 
high geological interest that I shall relate what I learnt of this 
singular morass. It is one enormous quagmire, soft and muddy, 



432 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

except where the surface is rendered partially firm by a covering 
of vegetables and their matted roots ; yet, strange to say, instead 
of being lower than the level of the surrounding country, it is 
actually higher than nearly all the firm and dry land which 
encompasses it, and, to make the anomaly complete, in spite 
of its semi-fluid character, it is higher in the interior than 
towards its margin. 

The only exception to both these statements is found on the 
western side, where, for the distance of about twelve or fifteen 
miles, the streams flow from slightly elevated but higher land, 
and supply all its abundant and overflowing water. Towards 
the north, the east, and the south the waters flow from the 
swamp to different rivers, which give abundant evidence, by 
the rate of their descent, that the Great Dismal is higher than 
the surrounding firm ground. This fact is also confirmed by the 
measurements made in leveling for the railway from Portsmouth 
to Suffolk, and for two canals cut through different parts of the 
morass, for the sake of obtaining timber. The railway itself, 
when traversing the Great Dismal, is literally higher than when 
on the land some miles distant on either side, and is six to 
seven feet higher than where it passes over dry ground near to 
Suffolk and Portsmouth. Upon the whole, the center of the 
morass seems to lie more than twelve feet above the flat country 
round it. 

If the streams which now flow in from the west had for ages 
been bringing down black fluid mire instead of water, over the 
firm subsoil, we might suppose the ground so inundated as to 
have acquired its present configuration. Some small ridges, 
however, of land must have existed in the original plain or 
basin, for these now rise like low islands in various places above 
the general surface. But the streams to the westward do not 
bring down liquid mire, and are not charged with any sediment. 
The soil of the swamp is formed of vegetable matter, usually 
without any admixture of earthy particles. We have here, in 
fact, a deposit of peat from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, in 
a latitude where, owing to the heat of the sun and length of the 



LYELL 433 

summer, no peat-mosses like those of Europe would be looked 
for under ordinary circumstances. 

In countries like Scotland and Ireland, where the climate is 
damp, and the summer short and cool, the natural vegetation 
of one year does not rot away during the next in moist situations. 
If water flows into such land it is absorbed, and promotes the 
vigorous growth of mosses and other aquatic plants, and when 
they die, the same water arrests their putrefaction. But, as a 
general rule, no such accumulation of peat can take place in 
a country like that of Virginia, where the summer's heat causes 
annually as large a quantity of dead plants to decay as is equal 
in amount to the vegetable matter produced in one year. 

There are many trees and shrubs in the region of the Pine 
Barrens (and the same may be said of the United States gener- 
ally) which, like our willows, flourish luxuriantly in water. The 
juniper-trees, or white cedar, stand firmly in the softest part of 
the quagmire, supported by their long tap-roots, and aflbrd, with 
many other evergreens, a dark shade, under which a multitude of 
ferns, reeds, and shrubs, from nine to eighteen feet high, and a 
thick carpet of mosses, four or five inches high, spring up, and are 
protected from the rays of the sun. When these are most power- 
ful, the large cedar and many other deciduous ^ trees are in full leaf. 
The black soil formed beneath this shade, to which the mosses 
and the leaves make annual additions, does not perfectly resem- 
ble the peat of Europe, most of the plants being so decayed as 
to leave little more than soft black mud, without any traces of 
organization. This loose soil is called " sponge " by the laborers ; 
and it has been ascertained that when exposed to the sun and 
thrown out on the bank of a canal where clearings have been 
made, it rots entirely away. Hence it is evident that it owes 
its preservation in the swamp to moisture and the shade of the 
dense foliage. The evaporation continually going on in the wet, 
spongy soil during summer cools the air and generates a tempera- 



1 leaf-shedding trees, as distinguished from evergreens ; from Lat. decidere, 

to fall off 

28 



434 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

ture resembling that of a more northern dimate, or a region more 
elevated above the level of the sea. 

Numerous trunks of large and tall trees lie buried in the black 
mire of the morass. In so loose a soil they are easily overthrown 
by winds, and nearly as many have been found lying beneath the 
surface of the peaty soil as standing erect upon it. When thrown 
down, they are soon covered by water, and keeping wet, they 
never decompose, except the sap-wood, which is less than an 
inch thick. Much of the timber is obtained by sounding a foot 
or two below the surface, and it is sawn into planks while half 
under water. 

The Great Dismal has been described as bfeing highest towards 
its center. Here, however, there is an extensive lake of an 
oval form, seven miles long and more than five wide, the depth, 
where greatest, fifteen feet ; and its bottom consisting of mud 
like the swamp, but sometimes with a pure white sand, a foot 
deep, covering the mud. The water is transparent, though 
tinged of a pale brown color, like that of our peat-mosses, and 
contains abundance of fish. This sheet of water is usually even 
with its banks, on which a thick and tall forest grows. There 
is no beach, for the bank sinks perpendicularly, so that if the 
waters are lowered several feet, it makes no alteration in the 
breadth of the lake. 

Much timber has been cut down and carried out from the 
swamp by means of canals, which are perfectly straight for long 
distances, with the trees on each side arching over, and almost 
joining their branches across, so that they throw a dark shade 
on the water, which of itself looks black, being colored as before 
mentioned. When the boats emerge from the gloom of these 
avenues into the lake, the scene is said to be '' as beautiful as 
fairy-land." 

The bears inhabiting the swamp climb trees in search of acorns 
and gum-berries, breaking off large boughs of the oaks in order 
to draw the acorns near to them. These same bears are said 
to kill hogs, and even cows. There are also wild-cats, and 
occasionally a solitary wolf, in the morass. 



LYELL 435 

That the ancient seams of coal were produced for the most 
part by terrestrial plants of all sizes, not drifted but growing on 
the spot, is a theory more and more generally adopted in modern 
times ; and the growth of what is called sponge in such a swamp, 
and in such a climate as the Great Dismal, already covering so 
many square miles of a low level region, bordering the sea, and 
capable of spreading itself indefinitely over the adjacent country, 
helps us greatly to conceive the manner in which the coal of the 
ancient carboniferous ^ rocks may have been formed. The heat, 
perhaps, may not have been excessive when the coal-measures ^ 
originated, but the entire absence of frost, with a warm and damp 
atmosphere, may have enabled tropical forms to flourish in lati- 
tudes far distant from the line.^ Huge swamps in a rainy climate, 
standing above the level of the surrounding firm land, and sup- 
porting a dense forest, may have spread far and wide, invading 
the plains, like some European peat-mosses when they burst; 
and the frequent submergence of these masses of vegetable matter 
beneath seas or estuaries, as often as the land sank down during 
subterranean movements, may have given rise to the deposition 
of strata of mud, sand, or limestone immediately upon the vege- 
table matter. The conversion of successive surfaces into dry 
land where other swamps supporting trees may have formed, 
might give origin to a continued series of coal-measures of 
great thickness. In some kinds of coal the vegetable texture is 
apparent throughout under the microscope ; in others, it has 
only partially disappeared ; but even in this coal, the flattened 
trunks of trees, converted into pure coal, are occasionally met 
with, and erect fossil trees are observed in the overlying strata, 
terminating downwards in seams of coal. 

1 Etymology } ^ coal-beds, or strata '^ the equator 



436 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



TYNDALL 

1820- 

JOHN Tyndall, the distinguished scientist, is a native of Ireland, where 
he was born in 1820. At an early age he devoted himself to the study of 
physics, and soon achieved a reputation which led to his appointment, at 
the age of thirty-three, to the chair of Natural Philosophy in the Royal 




Institution of London. He has won fame as a writer and lecturer on sub- 
jects of natural science, and has of all men most exhaustively discussed the 
important theory of the mutual convertibility of heat and motion. He is 
a vigorous and fascinating writer. His best-known works are '* Heat, con- 
sidered as a Mode of Motion;" "Hours of Exercise in the Alps," "Frag- 
ments of Science for Unscientific People," and " Six Lectures on Light." 
These lectures were delivered by the author in the principal cities of the 
United States, and were cordially admired for their rhetorical beauty and 
their instructiveness. 



TYhlDALL 437 

Professor Tyndall's experience as an instructor at Queensvvood College, 
though brief, seems to have had an important^ part in the molding of his 
character and in confirming his predilection for the special field of labor in 
which he has toiled with a success so signal. Though best known as an 
explorer in experimental physics, he is highly esteemed as a philosophic 
thinker. 



AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 

I. 

The doctrine has been held that the mind of the child is like 
a sheet of white paper, on which by education we can write what 
characters we please. This doctrine assuredly needs qualification 
and correction. In physics, when an external force is applied to 
a body with a view of affecting its inner texture, if we wish to 
predict the result, we must know whether the external force con- 
spires with or opposes the internal forces of the body itself; and 
in bringing the influence of education to bear upon the new-born 
man, his inner powers must be also taken into account. He 
comes to us as a bundle of inherited capacities and tendencies, 
labeled "from the indefinite past to the indefinite future; " and 
he makes his transit from the one to the other through the educa- 
tion of the present time. The object of that education is, or 
ought to be, to provide wise exercise for his capacities, wise 
direction for his tendencies, and through this exercise and this 
direction to furnish his mind with such knowledge as may con- 
tribute to the usefulness, the beauty, and the nobleness of his 
life. 

How is this discipline to be secured, this knowledge imparted? 
Two rival methods now solicit attention, — the one organized and 
equipped, the labors of centuries having been expended in bring- 
ing it to its present state of perfection ; the other, more or less 
chaotic, but becoming daily less so, and giving signs of enormous 
power, both as a source of knowledge and as a means of disci- 
pline. These two methods are the classical and the scientific 
method. I wish they were not rivals ; it is only bigotry and 



438 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

short-sightedness that make them so ; for assuredly it is possible 
to give both of them fair play. 

Though hardly authorized to express any opinion whatever 
upon the subject, I nevertheless hold the opinion that the proper 
study of a language is an intellectual disciphne of the highest 
kind. If I except discussions on the comparative merits of 
Popery and Protestantism, English grammar was the most impor- 
tant discipline of my boyhood. The piercing through the involved 
and inverted sentences of " Paradise Lost;" the Hnking of the 
verb to its often distant nominative, of the relative to its distant 
antecedent, of the agent to the object of the transitive verb, of 
the preposition to the noun or pronoun which it governed ; the 
study of variations in mood and tense, the transformations often 
necessary to bring out the true grammatical structure of a sen- 
tence, — all this was to my young mind a discipline of the highest 
value, and, indeed, a source of unflagging delight. How I re- 
joiced when I found a great author tripping, and was fairly able 
to pin him to a corner from which there was no escape ! As I 
speak, some of the sentences which exercised me when a boy rise 
to my recollection. '' He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." 
That was one of them, where the " he " is left, as it were, float- 
ing in mid-air without any verb to support it. I speak thus of 
English, because it was of real value to me. I do not speak of 
other languages, because their educational value for me was 
almost insensible. But, knowing the value of English so well, I 
should be the last to deny, or even to doubt, the high discipline 
involved in the proper study of Latin and Greek. 

That study, moreover, has other merits and recommendations 
which have been already slightly touched upon. It is organized 
and systematized by long-continued use. It is an instrument 
wielded by some of the best intellects of the country in the edu- 
cation of youth ; and it can point to results in the achievements 
of our foremost men. What, then, has science to offer which is 
in the least degree likely to compete with such a system ? Speak- 
ing of the world and all that therein is, of the sky and the stars 
around it, the ancient writer says, " And God saw every .thing that 



TYNDALL 439 

He had made, and behold it was very good." It is the body of 
things thus described which science offers to the study of man. 

The ultimate problem of physics is to reduce matter by analysis 
to its lowest condition of divisibility, and force to its simplest 
manifestations, and then by synthesis ^ to construct from these 
elements the world as it stands. We are still a long way from the 
final solution of this problem ; and when the solution comes, it 
wiP be one more of spiritual insight than of actual observation. 
But though we are still a long way from this complete intellectual 
mastery of Nature, we have conquered vast regions of it, have 
learned their politics and the play of their powers. 

We live upon a ball of matter eight thousand miles in diameter, 
swathed by an atmosphere of unknown height. This ball has 
been molten by heat, chilled to a sohd, and sculptured by water ; 
it is made up of substances possessing distinctive properties and 
modes of action, properties which have an immediate bearing 
upon the continuance of man in health, and on his recovery 
from disease, on which moreover depend all the arts of industrial 
life. These properties and modes of action offer problems to 
the intellect, some profitable to the child, and others sufficient 
to tax the highest powers of the philosopher. 

Our native sphere turns on its axis and revolves in space. It 
is one of a band which do the same. It is illuminated by a sun 
which, though nearly a hundred millions of miles distant, can be 
brought virtually into our closets and there subjected to examina- 
tion. It has its winds and clouds, its rain and frost, its light, 
heat, sound, electricity, and magnetism. And it has its vast 
kingdoms of animals and vegetables. To a most amazing extent 
the human mind has conquered these things, and reveals the logic 
which runs through them. Were they facts only, without logical 
relationship, science might, as a means of discipline, suffer in 
comparison with language. But the whole body of phenomena 
is instinct with law ; the facts are hung on principles ; and the 
value of physical science as a means of discipline consists in the 

1 putting together ; the opposite of analysis 



440 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

motion of the intellect, both inductively and deductively,^ along 
the lines of law marked out by phenomena. As regards that 
discipline to which I have already referred as derivable from the 
study of languages, — that, and more, are involved in the study 
of physical science. Indeed, I believe it would be possible so 
to limit and arrange the study of a portion of physics as to 
render the mental exercise involved in it almost qualitatively the 
same as that involved in the unraveling of a language. 

II. 

I HAVE thus far limited myself to the purely intellectual side of 
this question. But man is not all intellect. If he were so, science 
would, I believe, be his proper nutriment. But he feels as well 
as thinks; he is receptive of the subHme and the beautiful as 
well as of the true. Indeed, I believe that even the intellectual 
action of a complete man is, consciously or unconsciously, sus- 
tained by an undercurrent of the emotions. It is vain, I think, 
to attempt to separate moral and emotional nature from intel- 
lectual nature. Let a man but observe himself, and he will, if I 
mistake not, find that, in nine cases out of ten, moral or immoral 
considerations, as the case may be, are the motive force which 
pushes his intellect into action. The reading of the works of two 
men, neither of them imbued with the spirit of modern science, 
neither of them, indeed, friendly to that spirit, has placed me 
here to-day. These men are the English Carl)de and the Ameri- 
can Emerson. I never should have gone through Analytical 
Geometry and the Calculus had it not been for those men. I 
never should have become a physical investigator, and hence 
without them I should not have been here to-day. They told me 
what I ought to do in a way that caused me to do it, and all my 
consequent intellectual action is to be traced to this purely moral 
source. To Carlyle and Emerson I ought to add Fichte, the 
greatest representative of pure idealism. These three unscientific 
men made me a practical scientific worker. They called out, 

1 See Bacon, p. 42 



TYNDALL 441 

*' Act ! " I hearkened to the summons ; taking the liberty, how- 
ever, of determining for myself the direction which effort was to 
take. 

And I may now cry, " Act ! " but the potency of action must 
be yours. I may pull the trigger, but if the gun be not charged 
there is no result. We are creators in the intellectual world as 
little as in the physical. We may ren.ove obstacles, and render 
latent capacities active, but we cannot suddenly change the nature 
of man. The '' new birth " itself impHes the pre-existence of the 
new character which requires not to be created but brought forth. 
You can not by any amount of missionary labor suddenly trans- 
form the savage into the civilized Christian. The improvement 
of man is secular,^ — not the work of an hour or of a day. But, 
though indubitably bound by our organizations, no man knows 
what the potentialities of any human mind may be, which require 
only release to be brought into action. 

The circle of human nature is not complete without the arc of 
feeling and emotion. The lilies of the field have a value for us 
beyond their botanical ones, — a certain lightening of the heart 
accompanies the declaration that " Solomon in all his glory was 
not arrayed like one of these." The sound of the village bell 
which comes mellowed from the valley to the traveler upon the 
hill, has a value beyond its acoustical one. The setting sun when 
it mantles with the bloom of roses the alpine snows, has a value 
beyond its optical one. The starry heavens, as you know, had 
for Immanuel Kant a value beyond their astroriomical one.^ 
Round about the intellect sweeps the horizon of emotions from 
which all our noblest impulses are derived. I think it very desir- 
able to keep this horizon open ; not to permit either priest or 
philosopher to draw down his shutters between you and it. And 
here the dead languages, which are sure to be beaten by science 
in the purely intellectual fight, have an irresistible claim. They 
supplement the work of science by exalting and refining the 

1 /. e. through considerable periods of time 

2 Kant was a metaphysician, but his scientific speculations led directly to 
the *' nebular hypothesis " of Laplace. 



442 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

aesthetic faculty, and must on this account be cherished by all 
who desire to see human culture complete. There must be a 
reason for the fascination which these languages have so long 
exercised upon the most powerful and elevated minds, — a fasci- 
nation which will probably continue for men of Greek and Roman 
mold to the end of time. 

Let me utter one practical word in conclusion, — take care of 
your health. There have been men who by wise attention to this 
point might have risen to any eminence, — might have made great 
discoveries, written great poems, commanded armies, or ruled 
states, but who by unwise neglect, of this point have come to 
nothing. Imagine Hercules as oarsman in a rotten boat : what 
can he do there but by the very force of his stroke expedite the 
ruin of his craft? Take care, then, of the timbers of your boat, 
and avoid all practices likely to introduce either wet or dry rot 
among them. And this is not to be accomplished by desultory or 
intermittent efforts of the will, but by the formation of habits. 
The will, no doubt, has sometimes to put forth its strength in 
order to strangle or crush the special temptation. But the forma- 
tion of right habits is essential to your permanent security. They 
diminish your chance of falling when assailed, and they augment 
your chance of recovery when overthrown. 



HUXLEY 



443 



HUXLEY 



1825- 



Thomas Henry Huxley, physiologist and naturalist, was born at Eal- 
ing, England, May 4, 1825. At the age of twenty he entered the British navy 
in the capacity of surgeon. In 1848 he produced his essay, "On the Anat- 
omy and Affinities of the Family of the Medusae." In 1854 he became 




Professor of Natural History in the School of Mines, and a few years later 
v/as appointed Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution. From 1870 
to 1872 he served as a member of the London School Board. 

To the recent discussion of the origin of man, Huxley has been an impor- 
tant contributor. His " Man's Place in Nature " was largely instrumental 
in directing public attention to this subject, and the ability of the book 
made a profound impression on thoughtful minds. His later work, " Proto- 
plasm, or the Physical Basis of Life," was not less stimulating and impres- 



4z^4 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

sive. Huxley is one of the ablest supporters of the evolutionary doctrines 
associated with the name of Darwin. From the lecture platform he has 
wor the attention of the best minds of England, and through his published 
works has gained the ear of the whole scientific world. To no man now 
living does science owe a larger debt, whether as an investigator or as 
an expounder. 

" All," says Haeckel, " who have read the masterly papers contained in 
' Lay Sermons,' or the ' Critiques and Addresses,' will acknowledge Huxley's 
fine and vigorous command of English, and the literary richness of his style. 
He has a keen enjoyment of literary excellence, and ' keeps up ' with poetry, 
fiction, and the progress of critical thought, notwithstanding his indefatigable 
scientific investigations. Owing to these traits, he has a high reputation as 
a popular scientific teacher ; and even his ' Lectures to Workingmen ' are 
models of what such discourses should be — clear, simple, and attractive, 
yet carefully accurate and strictly scientific." 



SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 

I HOPE you will consider that the arguments I have now stated, 
even if there were no better ones, constitute a sufficient apology 
for urging the introduction of science into schools. The next 
question to which I have to address myself is, What sciences 
ought to be thus taught ? And this is one of the most important 
of questions. There are other forms of culture besides physical 
science ; and I should be profoundly sorry to see the fact for- 
gotten, or even to observe a tendency to starve or cripple literary 
or aesthetic culture for the sake of science. Such a narrow view 
of the nature of education has nothing to do with my firm con- 
viction that a complete and thorough scientific culture ought to 
be introduced into all schools. By this, however, I do not mean 
that every school-boy should be taught everything in science. 
That would be a very absurd thing to conceive, and a very mis- 
chievous thing to attempt. What I mean is, that no boy or girl 
should leave school without possessing a grasp of the general 
character of science, and without having been disciplined, more 
or less, in the methods of all sciences ; so that, when turned into 
the world to make their own way, they shall be prepared to face 



HUXLEY 445 

scientific problems, not by knowing at once the conditions of 
every problem, or by being able at once to solve it, but by being 
familiar with the general current of scientific thought, and by 
being able to apply the methods of science in the proper way, 
when they have acquainted themselves with the conditions of the 
special problem. 

That is what I understand by scientific education. To furnish 
a boy with such an education, it is by no means necessary that 
he should devote his whole school existence to physical science ; 
in fact, no one would lament so one-sided a proceeding more 
than I. Nay, more, it is not necessary for him to give up more 
than a moderate share of his time to such studies, if they be 
properly selected and arranged, and if he be trained in them in a 
fitting manner. 

I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as follows : To 
begin with, let every child be instructed in those general views of 
the phenomena of nature for which we have no exact English 
name. The nearest approximation to a name for what I mean, 
which we possess, is "physical geography;" that is to say, a 
general knowledge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and 
about it. If any one who has had experience of the ways of 
young children will call to mind their questions, he will find that, 
so far as they can be put into any scientific category, they come 
under this head. The child asks, " What is the moon, and why 
does it shine?" ''What is this water, and where does it run?" 
"What is the wind?" "What makes the waves in the sea?" 
" Where does this animal Hve, and what is the use of that plant? " 
And if not snubbed and stunted by being told not to ask foolish 
questions, there is no limit to the intellectual craving of a young 
child, nor any bounds to the slow but solid accretion of knowledge 
and development of the thinking faculty in this way. To all 
such questions answers which are necessarily incomplete, though 
true as far as they go, may be given by any teacher whose ideas 
represent real knowledge, and not mere book learning ; and a 
panoramic i view of nature, accompanied by a strong infusion of 

1 literally, all-seeing (from Gr. pan, all, horama, view) 



446 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

the scientific habit of mind, may thus be placed within the reach 
of every child of nine or ten. 

After this preliminary opening of the eyes to the great spectacle 
of the daily progress of nature, as the reasoning faculties of the 
child grow, and he becomes familiar with the use of the tools of 
knowledge, — reading, writing, and elementary mathematics, — 
he should pass on to what is, in the more strict sense, physical 
science. Now, there are two kinds of physical science. The 
one regards form and the relation of forms to one another ; the 
other deals with causes and effects. In many of what we term 
our sciences, these two kinds are mixed up together ; but sys- 
tematic botany is a pure example of the former kind, and physics 
of the latter kind, of science. Every educational advantage 
which training in physical science can give is obtainable from the 
proper study of these two ; and I should be contented for the 
present if they, added to physical geography, furnished the whole 
of the scientific curriculum of schools. Indeed, I conceive it 
would be one of the greatest boons which could be conferred 
upon England, if henceforward every child in the country were 
instructed in the general knowledge of the things about it, in the 
elements of physics and of botany ; but I should be still better 
pleased if there could be added somewhat of chemistry, and an 
elementary acquaintance with human physiology. 

So far as school education is concerned, I want to go no fur- 
ther just now ; and I beUeve that such instruction would make 
an excellent introduction to that preparatory scientific training 
which, as I have indicated, is so essential for the successful pur- 
suit of our most important professions. But this modicum ^ of 
instruction must be so given as to insure real knowledge and prac- 
tical discipline. If scientific education is to be dealt with as mere 
book-work, it will be better not to attempt it, but to stick to the 
Latin Grammar, which makes no pretense to be anything but 
book-work. 

If the great benefits of scientific training are sought, it is essen- 
tial that such training should be real ; that is to say, that the mind 

1 from Lat. modicus, moderate ; hence, a measured supply 



HUXLEY 



A\7 



of the scholar should be brought into direct relation with fact, 
that he should not merely be told a thing, but made to see by 
the use of his own intellect and ability that the thing is so and no 
■otherwise. The great peculiarity of scientific training, that in 
virtue of which it can not be replaced by any other discipline 
whatsoever, is this bringing of the mind directly into contact with 
fact, and practicing the intellect in the completest form of induc- 
tion ; that is to say, in drawing conclusions from particular facts 
made known by immediate observation of nature. 

The other studies which enter into ordinary education do not 
discipHne the mind in this way. Mathematical training is almost 
purely deductive. The mathematician starts with a few simple 
propositions, the proof of which is so obvious that they are called 
self-evident, and the rest of his work consists of subtile deduc- 
tions from them. The teaching of languages, at any rate as ordi- 
riiy practiced, is of the same general nature, — authority and tra- 
dition furnish the data, and the mental operations of the scholar 
are deductive. 

Again, if history be the subject of study, the facts are still 
taken upon the evidence of tradition and authority. You can 
not make a boy see the battle of Thermopylae for himself, or 
know, of his own knowledge, that Cromwell once ruled England. 
There is no getting into direct contact with natural fact by this 
road ; there is no dispensing with authority, but rather a resting 
upon it. 

In all these respects science differs from other educational 
discipline, and prepares the scholar for common life. What have 
we to do in every-day life ? Most of the business which demands 
our attention is matter of fact, which needs, in the first place, to 
be accurately observed or apprehended ; in the second, to be 
interpreted by inductive and deductive reasonings, which are 
altogether similar in their nature to those employed in science. 
In the one case, as in the other, whatever is taken for granted is 
so taken at one's own peril. Fact and reason are the ultimate 
arbiters, and patience and honesty are the great helpers out of 
difficulty. 



448 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

But if scientific training is to yield its most eminent results, it 
must, I repeat, be made practical. That is to say, in explaining to 
a child the general phenomena of nature, you must, as far as pos- 
sible, give reality to your teaching by object-lessons. In teaching 
him botany, he must handle the plants and dissect the flowers for 
himself; in teaching him physics and chemistry, you must not 
be solicitous to fill him with information, but you must be careful 
that what he learns he knows of his own knowledge. Don't be 
satisfied with telling him that a magnet attracts iron. Let him 
see that it does ; let him feel the pull of the one upon the other 
for himself. And, especially, tell him that it is his duty to doubt, 
until he is compelled by the absolute authority of nature to be- 
lieve, that which is written in books. Pursue this discipline care- 
fully and conscientiously, and you may make sure that, however 
scanty may be the measure of information which you have poured 
into the boy's mind, you have created an intellectual habit of 
priceless value in practical life. 

One is constantly asked, When should this scientific education 
be commenced? I should say with the dawn of intelligence. 
As I have already said, a child seeks for information about mat- 
ters of physical science as soon as it begins to talk. The first 
teaching it wants is an object-lesson of one sort or another ; and 
as soon as it is fit for systematic instruction of any kind, it is fit 
for a modicum of science. 

People talk of the difficulty of teaching young children such 
matters, and in the same breath insist upon their learning their 
Catechism, which contains propositions far harder to comprehend 
than anything in the educational course I have proposed. Again, 
I am incessantly told that we who advocate the introduction of 
science into schools make no allowance for the stupidity of the 
average boy or girl ; but, in my belief, that stupidity, in nine 
cases out of ten, is unnatural, and is developed by a long pro- 
cess of parental and pedagogic repression of the natural intel- 
lectual appetites, accompanied by a persistent attempt to create 
artificial ones for food which is not only tasteless, but essen- 
tially indigestible. 



HUXLEY 449 

Those who urge the difficulty of instructing young people in 
science are apt to forget another very important condition of 
success ; important in all kinds of teaching, but most essential, 
I am disposed to think, when the scholars are very young. This 
condition is, that the teacher should himself really and practically 
know his subject. If he does, he will be able to speak of it in 
the easy language, and with the completeness of conviction, with 
which he talks of any ordinary every-day matter. If he does 
not, he will be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the technical 
phraseology which he has got up ; and a dead dogmatism, which 
oppresses or raises opposition, will take the place of the lively 
confidence, born of personal conviction, which cheers and 
encourages the eminently sympathetic mind of childhood. 



At the period of the Renascence, the few and scattered stu- 
dents of Nature picked up the clew to her secrets exactly as it 
fell from the hands of the Greeks a thousand years before. The 
foundations of mathematics were so well laid by them that our 
children learn their geometry from a book written for the schools 
of Alexandria two thousand years ago. Modern astronomy is the 
natural continuation and development of the work of Hipparchus 
and of Ptolemy ; modern physics of that of Democritus and of 
Archimedes. 

We can not know all the best thoughts and sayings of the 
Greeks unless we know what they thought about natural phenom- 
ena. We falsely pretend to be the inheritors of their culture, 
unless we are penetrated, as the best minds among them were, 
with an unhesitating faith that the free employment of reason, in 
accordance with scientific method, is the sole method of reaching 
truth. 



29 



450 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

AMERICAN SCIENTISTS 

AGASSIZ — GRAY - DANA 

I^WO names of great significance in the history of eigh- 
teenth-century science are those of Benjamin Frank- 
lin and Benjamin Thompson, better known as " Count 
Rumford." Both these men were American by birth and 
by education. The most important of FrankHn's many 
scientific achievements was his discovery that lightning 
is merely a manifestation of electricity. Thompson was 
the first to demonstrate that heat is a mode of motion. 

Selections from the works of three American scientists 
of distinction — Agassiz, Gray, and Dana — will be found 
in the following pages. Among many recent investigators 
and writers, Alexander Winchell, Spencer F. Baird, Simon 
Newcomb, Charles A. Young, and Matthew F. Maury are 
especially noteworthy. Professor Winchell has made origi- 
nal researches into the geology of the Mississippi Basin. 
His principal works are *' Sketches of Creation " and ** A 
Geological Excursion." Baird has published many valu- 
able studies in Zoology. Professors Newcomb and Young 
are distinguished in the department of Astronomy. Lieu- 
tenant Maury is famous for his " Physical Geography of 
the Sea." 

John Fiske, whose historical writings have already been 
referred to, has even higher claims to lasting repute as the 
chief American representative of the evolutionary school 
of philosophy. His principal work, " The Cosmic Phi- 
losophy," is in substantial agreement with the system of 
Synthetic Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. Mr. Fiske has 
also published two lectures, entitled " The Idea of God," 
and '* The Destiny of Man," that are of a metaphysical 
and speculative nature. 



AGASSIZ 



451 



AGASSIZ 

1807-1873 

Louis Jean Rodolphe Agassiz was born in the canton of Vaud, Swit- 
zerland, in 1807. While still very young he became a zealous student of 
scientific subjects, and early gave promise of the eminence which he after- 
wards attained in that department of intellectual effort. For several years 
he occupied the chair of Natural History at Neufchatel, and in the discharge 




of his duties and the prosecution of independent investigations commended 
himself to the attention and respect of leading scientists in Europe. He was 
the intimate friend of Cuvier, the great naturalist. He was urgently invited 
by several universities, and when in 1847 there came a call to him from 
Harvard, he accepted it. 

The history of his work in the twenty-five years of his life in this country is 
familiar ; he was esteemed by universal consent the foremost naturalist in 
the United States. The recent rapid growth of popular interest in science 
and the establishment and progress of many scientific institutions in this 



452 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

country are largely attributable to his influence. Long before his coming to 
America Agassiz had won enviable fame in connection with the Glacial 
Theory, which he promulgated in 1837. During his residence here he was a 
frequent contributor to scientific periodicals, and produced several works of 
originality and value. Conspicuous among these are " Methods of Study in 
Natural History" and "Geological Sketches." 

In 1865 Professor Agassiz made a voyage to Brazil in the interests of 
science. The labors resulting from this enterprise, and his arduous efforts 
in behalf of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, proved 
too severe for his physical strength, and near the close of his sixty-sixth 
year the great naturalist passed away. The first extract is from " A Jour- 
ney in Brazil," the joint work of Professor and Mrs. Agassiz; the second 
is from " Geological Sketches." 



AMERICA THE OLD WORLD 

L 

First-born among the Continents, though so much later in 
culture and civilization than some of more recent birth, America, 
so far as her physical history is concerned, has been falsely de- 
nominated the New World. Hers was the first dry land lifted 
out of the waters, hers the first shore washed by the ocean that 
enveloped all the earth beside ; and while Europe was repre- 
sented only by islands rising here and there above the sea, 
America already stretched an unbroken line of land from Nova 
Scotia to the Far West.^ 

In the present state of our knowledge, our conclusions respect- 
ing the beginning of the earth's history, the way in which it took 
form and shape as a distinct, separate planet, must, of course, 
be very vague and hypothetical.^ Yet the progress of science is 



1 "It would be inexpedient to encumber this essay," Agassiz remarks, 
"with references to all the authorities on which such geological results rest. 
They are drawn from the various State Surveys, including that of the min- 
eral lands of Lake Superior, in which the early rise of the American con- 
tinent is for the first time affirmed, and from other more general works on 
American geology." 

■■^ supposititious, conjectural and tentative 



AGASSIZ 453 

so rapidly reconstructing the past that we may hope to solve 
even this problem ; and to one who looks upon man's appear- 
ance upon the earth as the crowning work in a succession of 
creative acts, all of which have had relation to his coming in the 
end, it will not seem strange that he should at last be allowed 
to understand a history which was but the introduction to his 
own existence. It is my belief that not only the future, but the 
past also, is the inheritance of man, and that we shall yet con- 
quer our lost birthright. 

Even now our knowledge carries us far enough to warrant the 
assertion that there was a time when our earth was in a state of 
igneous fusion,^ when no ocean bathed it and no atmosphere 
surrounded it ; when no wind blew over it, and no rain fell upon 
it, but an intense heat held all its materials in solution. In those 
days the rocks which are now the very bones and sinews of our 
mother Earth — her granites, her porphyries, her basalts, her 
sienites — were melted into a liquid mass. 

As I am writing for the unscientific reader, who may not be 
familiar with the facts through which these inferences have been 
reached, I will answer here a question which, were we talking 
together, he might naturally ask in a somewhat skeptical tone. 
How do you know that this state of things ever existed, and, 
supposing that the solid materials' of which our earth consists 
were ever in a liquid condition, what right have you to infer that 
this condition was caused by the action of heat upon them ? I 
answer. Because it is acting upon them still ; because the earth 
we tread is but a thin crust floating on a liquid sea of molten 
materials ; because the agencies that were at work then are at 
work now, and the present is the logical sequence of the past. 
From Artesian^ wells, from mines, from geysers, from hot springs, 
a mass of facts has been collected, proving incontestably the 
heated condition of all substances at a certain depth below the 
earth's surface ; and if we need more positive evidence, we have 

^ igneous fusion^ fiery moltenness 

2 Artesian, from Artois in France (anciently known as Artesium), where 
such wells have long been sunk. 



454 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

it in the fiery eruptions that even now bear fearful testimony to 
the molten ocean seething within the globe and forcing its way 
out from time to time. 

The modern progress of Geology has led us by successive 
and perfecdy connected steps back to a time when what is now 
only an occasional and rare phenomenon was the normal con- 
dition of our earth ; when those internal fires were inclosed in 
an envelope so thin that it opposed but little resistance to their 
frequent outbreak, and they constantly forced themselves through 
this crust, pouring out melted materials that subsequently cooled 
and consolidated on its surface. So constant were these erup- 
tions, and so slight was the resistance they encountered, that 
some portions of the earlier rock-deposits are perforated with 
numerous chimneys, narrow tunnels as it were, bored by the 
liquid masses that poured out through them and greatly modi- 
fied their first condition. 

There is, perhaps, no part of the world, certainly none familiar 
to science, where the early geological periods can be studied with 
so much ease and precision as in the United States. Along their 
northern borders, between Canada and the United States, there 
runs the low line of hills known as the Laurentian ^ Hills. Insig- 
nificant in height, nowhere rising more than fifteen hundred or 
two thousand feet above the level of the sea, these are neverthe- 
less the first mountains that broke the uniform level of the earth's 
surface, and lifted themselves above the waters. Their low stat- 
ure, as compared with that of other more lofty mountain-ranges, 
is in accordance with an invariable rule, by which the relative 
age of mountains may be estimated. The oldest mountains are 
the lowest, while the younger and more recent ones tower above 
their elders, and are usually more torn and dislocated also. This 
is easily understood when we remember that all mountains and 
mountain-chains are the result of upheavals, and that the violence 
of the outbreak must have been in proportion to the strength of 
the resistance. When the crust of the earth was so thin that the 

1 the adjective is derived from the name of the St. Lawrence River 



AGASSIZ 



455 



heated masses within easily broke through it, they were not 
thrown to so great a height, and formed comparatively low eleva- 
tions, such as the Canadian hills, or the mountains of Bretagne 
and Wales. But in later times, when young, vigorous giants, such 
as the Alps, the Himalayas, or, later still, the Rocky Mountains, 
forced their way out from their fiery prison-house, the crust of 
the earth was much thicker, and fearful indeed must have been 
the convulsions which attended their exit. 

II. 

The Laurentian Hills form, then, a granite range, stretching 
from eastern Canada to the upper Mississippi, and immediately 
along its base are gathered the Azoic ^ deposits, the first stratified 
beds, in which the absence of life need not surprise us, since 
they were formed beneath a heated ocean. As well might we 
expect to find the remains of fish or shells or crabs at the bottom 
of geysers or of boiling springs, as on those early shores bathed by 
an ocean of which the heat must have been so intense. Although 
from the condition in which we find it, this first granite range 
has evidently never been disturbed by any violent convulsion 
since its first upheaval, yet there has been a gradual rising of 
that part of the continent, for the Azoic beds do not lie hori- 
zontally along the base of the Laurentian Hills in the position in 
which they must originally have been deposited, but are lifted 
and rest against their slopes. They have been more or less dis- 
located in this process, and are greatly metamorphosed ^ by the 
intense heat to which they must have been exposed. Indeed, 
all the oldest stratified rocks have been baked by the prolonged 
action of heat. 

It may be asked how the materials for those first stratified 
deposits were provided. In later times, when an abundant and 
various soil covered the earth, when every river brought down to 
the ocean, not only its yearly tribute of mud or clay or lime, but 

^ Azoic (Gr. a, without, zoe, life) destitute of evidences of organic life 
- changed, transformed ; etymology ? 



456 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

the debris of animals and plants that lived and died in its waters 
or along its banks, when every lake and pond deposited at its 
bottom in successive layers the lighter or heavier materials float- 
ing in its waters and settling gradually beneath them, the process 
by which stratified materials are collected and gradually harden 
into rock is more easily understood. But when the solid surface 
of the earth was only just beginning to form, it would seem that 
the floating matter in the sea can hardly have been in sufficient 
quantity to form any extensive deposits. No doubt there was 
some abrasion even of that first crust ; but the more abundant 
source of the earliest stratification is to be found in the submarine 
volcanoes that poured their liquid streams into the first ocean. 
At what rate these materials would be distributed and precipi- 
tated in regular strata it is impossible to determine ; but that 
volcanic materials were so deposited in layers is evident from 
the relative position of the earliest rocks. 

I have already spoken of the innumerable chimneys perforat- 
ing the Azoic beds, narrow outlets of Plutonic rock, protruding 
through the earliest strata. Not only are such funnels filled 
with the crystalline mass of granite that flowed through them 
in a liquid state, but it has often poured over their sides, ming- 
ling with the stratified beds around. In the present state of our 
knowledge, we can explain such appearances only by supposing 
that the heated materials within the earth's crust poured out 
frequently, meeting little resistance, — that they then scattered 
and were precipitated in the ocean around, settling in successive 
strata at its bottom, — that through such strata the heated masses 
within continued to pour again and again, forming for themselves 
the chimney-like outlets above mentioned. 

Such, then, was the earliest American land, — a long, narrow 
island, almost continental in its proportions, since it stretched 
from the eastern borders of Canada nearly to the point where 
now the base of the Rocky Mountains meets the plain of the 
Mississippi Valley. We may still walk along its ridge and know 
that we tread upon the ancient granite that first divided the waters 
into a northern and southern ocean ; and if our imaginations will 



AGASSIZ 457 

carry us so far, we may look down toward its base and fancy how 
the sea washed against this earhest shore of a hfeless world. This 
is no romance, but the bald, simple truth ; for the fact that this 
granite band was lifted out of the waters so early in the history 
of the world, and has not since been submerged, has, of course, 
prevented any subsequent deposits from forming above it. And 
this is true of all the northern part of the United States. It has 
been lifted gradually, the beds deposited in one period being 
subsequently raised, and forming a shore along which those of the 
succeeding one collected, so that we have their whole sequence 
before us. In regions where all the geological deposits, Silurian, 
Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic,^ etc., are piled one 
upon another, and we can get a glimpse of their internal relations 
only where some rent has laid them open, or where their .ragged 
edges, worn away by the abrading action of external influences, 
expose to view their successive layers, it must, of course, be more 
difficult to follow their connection. 

For this reason the American continent offers facilities to the 
geologist denied to him in the so-called Old World, where the 
earlier deposits are comparatively hidden, and the broken char- 
acter of the land, intersected by mountains in every direction, 
renders his investigation still more difficult. Of course, when I 
speak of the geological deposits as so completely unveiled to us 
here, I do not forget the sheet of drift which covers the continent 
from north to south ; but the drift is only a superficial and recent 
addition to the soil, resting loosely above the other geological 
deposits, and arising from very different causes. 

In this article I have intended to limit myself to a general 
sketch of the formation of the Laurentian Hills, with the Azoic 
stratified beds resting against them. In the Silurian epoch fol- 
lowing the Azoic we have the first beach on which any Hfe stirred ; 
it extended along the base of the Azoic beds, widening by its 
extensive deposits the narrow strip of land already upheaved. 

1 Devonian . . . Triassic : See the geological diagram and table at page 
621 of Webster's International Dictionary. 



458 



CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 



GRAY 



1810-1! 



Professor Asa Gray, the eminent botanist, was born in Paris, Oneida 
County, New York, November 18, 1810, and died in 1888. He studied 
medicine, but his enthusiastic love of botanical investigation withheld him 
from the practice of his profession. In 1834 he received the appointment of 
botanist to the United States Exploring Expedition ; but, impatient of the 




yh^<^ 



^V- Cu 



'/^ 



delays which hindered that enterprise, he resigned his office in 1837. About 
that time he was chosen Professor of Botany in the University of Michigan ; 
before that institution was opened he accepted the Fisher Professorship of 
Natural History in Harvard University. His first contribution to the litera- 
ture of botany was " North American Gramineae and Cyperaceae," of which 
two volumes were published in 1834-35. This brought him prominently 
before the scientific world. His botanical career, however, may be said to 
date from his reading, in December, 1834, before the New York Lyceum of 
Natural History, " A Notice of some New, Rare, or otherwise Interesting 
Plants from the Northern and Western Portions of the State of New York." 



GRAY 459 

In 1S38, in conjunction with John Torrey, M. D., he prepared the first part of 
" The Flora of North America." This work has never been completed ; but 
in its fragmentary state it is esteemed one of the most valuable contributions 
ever made in America to the science of botany. The collections made by 
the Exploring Expedition of Commodore Wilkes, during the years 1838-42, 
except those obtained from the Pacific coast, were placed in the hands of 
Professor Gray for elaboration, and the fruits of his labors are preserved in 
two volumes on the " Botany of the United States Exploring Expedition." 

His numerous papers in the memoirs of the learned societies, although not 
of a popular character, comprise a large part of his most important con- 
tributions to science. The most generally interesting one is his " Memoir on 
the Botany of Japan in its Relations to that of the United States," which 
subject was followed up in his Address as President of the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, delivered at Dubuque, August, 1872. 
His " Structural Botany " is universally accepted as one of the best exposi- 
tions of vegetable physiology and morphology ever written, while his " Man- 
ual of Botany " has long been known as a standard work. He produced 
several books of an elementary character, among which are " How Plants 
Grow," " How Plants Behave," " Lessons in Botany," " The School and 
Field Book of Botany," etc. Professor Gray possessed remarkable qualifi- 
cations for this work, his expositions being singularly clear, and his style in 
all respects attractive. 



HOW CERTAIN PLANTS CAPTURE INSECTS * 

This is not a common habit of plants. Insects are fed, and 
allowed to depart unharmed. When captures are made, they 
must sometimes be purely accidental and meaningless ; as in 
those species of Silene called Catch-fly, because small flies and 
other weak insects, sticking fast to a clammy exudation^ of the 
calyxes in some species, of a part of the stem in others, are un- 
able to extricate themselves, and so perish. But in certain cases 
insects are caught in ways so remarkable that we can not avoid 
regarding them as contrivances, as genuine y?}'-/r^/i-. 

Flower fly-traps are certainly to be found in some plants of the 
Orchis family. One instance is that of Cypripedium, or Lady's- 
Slipper, which is a contrivance for cross-fertilization. Here the 
insect is entrapped for the purpose of securing its services ; and 

^ from " How Plants Behave " ^ a discharge of moisture 



460 C/tTH CARTS LITERARY READER 

the detention is only temporary. If it did not escape from one 
flower to enter into another, the whole purpose of the contrivance 
would be defeated. Not so, however, in leaf fly-traps. These 
all take the insect's life, — whether with intent or not, it may be 
difficult to make out. The commonest and the most ambiguous 
leaf fly-traps are such as Pitchers, of which those of our Sarra- 
ce7iia, or Sidesaddle-flower, are most familiar. A common yellow- 
flowered species of the Southern States has them so very long and 
narrow, that they are popularly named trumpets. In these pitchers, 
or tubes, water is generally found, sometimes caught from rain, 
but in other cases evidently furnished by the plant, the pitcher 
being so constructed that water can not rain in : this water 
abounds with drowned insects, commonly in all stages of decay. 
One would suppose that insects which have crawled into the 
pitcher might as readily crawl out ; but they do not, and closer 
examination shows that escaping is not as easy as entering. In 
most pitchers of this sort there are sharp and stiff hairs within, 
all pointing downward, which offer considerable obstruction to 
returning, but none to entering. 

Why plants which are rooted in wet bogs or in moist ground 
need to catch water in pitchers, or to secrete it there, is a mystery, 
unless it is wanted to drow^n flies in. And what they gain from a 
solution of dead flies is equally hard to guess. 

Into such pitchers as those of the common species rain may 
fall ; but not readily into others, not at all into those of the 
Parrot-headed species of the Southern States, for the inflated lid 
or cover arches over the mouth of the pitcher completely. This 
is even more strikingly so in Daiiingtonia , the curious Californian 
Pitcher-plant lately made known and cultivated : in this the con- 
tracted entrance to the pitcher is concealed under the hood, and 
looks downward instead of upward ; and even the small chance 
of any rain entering by aid of the wind is, as it were, guarded 
against by a curious appendage, resembling the forked tail of 
some fish, which hangs over the front. Any water found in this 
pitcher must come from the plant itself. So it also must in the 
combined Pitcher and Tendril of Nepenthes. These Pitcher- 



GRAY 461 

plants are woody climbers, natives of the Indian Archipelago, 
and not rarely cultivated in hothouses as a curiosity. Some of 
their leaves lengthen the tip into the tendril only; some of the 
lower bear a pitcher only ; but the best-developed leaves have 
both, — the tendril for climbing, the pitcher one can hardly say 
for what purpose. The pitcher is tightly closed by a neatly fitting 
lid when young ; and in strong and healthy plants there is com- 
monly a httle water in it, which could not possibly have been 
introduced from without. After they are fully grown, the lid 
opens by a hinge ; then a little water might be supposed to rain 
in. In the humid, sultry climates they inhabit, it probably does 
so freely ; and the leaves are found partly filled with dead flies, 
as in our wild Pitcher-plants. 

All species of Sundew (^Drosera) have their leaves, and some 
their stalks also, beset with bristles tipped with a gland from 
which oozes a drop of clear but very glutinous liquid, making the 
plant appear as if studded with dew-drops. These remain, glisten- 
ing in the sun, long after dew-drops would have been dissipated. 
Small flies, gnats, and such-like insects, seemingly enticed by the 
glittering drops, stick fast upon them, and perish by starvation, 
one would suppose without any benefit whatever to the plant. 
But in the broad-leaved wild species of our bogs, such as the 
common Round-leaved Sundew, the upper face and edges of the 
blade of the leaf bear stronger bristles, tipped with a larger glu- 
tinous drop, and the whole forms what we must allow to be a 
veritable fly-trap ; for, when a small fly alights on the upper 
face, and is held by some of the glutinous drops long enough for 
the leaf to act, the surrounding bristles slowly bend inwards so as 
to bring their glutinous tips also against the body of the insect, 
adding, one by one, to the bonds, and rendering captivity and 
death certain. This movement of the bristles must be of the 
same nature as that by which tendrils and some leafstalks bend 
or coil. It is much too slow to be visible except in the result, 
which takes a few hours, or even a day or two to be completed. 
Here, then, is a contrivance for catching flies, a most elaborate 
one, in action slow but sure. And the different species of Sun- 



462 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

dew offer all gradations between those with merely scattered and 
motionless dewy-tipped bristles, to which flies may chance to 
stick, and this more complex arrangement, which we can not 
avoid regarding as intended for fly-catching. Moreover, in both 
of our commoner species, the blade of the leaf itself incurves, so 
as to fold round its victim ! 

x\nd a most practiced observer, whose observations are not yet 
published, declares that the leaves of the common Round-leaved 
Sundew act differently when different objects are placed upon 
them. For instance, if a particle of raw meat be substituted for 
the living fly, the bristles will close upon it in the same manner ; 
but to a particle of chalk or wood they remain nearly indifl"erent. 
If any doubt should still remain whether the fly-catching in Sun- 
dews is accidental or intentional, — in other words, whether the 
leaf is so constructed and arranged in order that it may capture 
flies, — the doubt may perhaps disappear upon the contemplation 
of another and even more extraordinary plant of the same family 
of the Sundew, namely, Venus' s Flytrap, or Dioncua uuiscipula. 
This plant abounds in the low savannas around Wilmington, North 
Carolina, and is native nowhere else. It is not very difficult to 
cultivate, at least for a time, and it is kept in many choice con- 
servatories as a vegetable wonder. 

The trap is the end of the leaf. It is somewhat like the leaf 
of Sundew, only larger, about an inch in diameter, with bristles 
still stouter, but only round the margin, like a fringe, and no 
clammy liquid or gland at their tips. The leaf folds on itself as 
if hinged at the midrib. Three more delicate bristles are seen 
on the face upon close inspection. When these are touched by 
the finger or the point of a pencil, the open trap shuts with a 
quick motion, and after a considerable interval it reopens. When 
a fly or other insect ahghts on the surface and brushes against 
these sensitive bristles, the trap closes promptly, generally im- 
prisoning the intruder. It closes at first with the sides convex 
and the brisdes crossing each other like the fingers of interlocked 
liands or the teeth of a steel trap. But soon the sides of the 
trap flatten down and press firmly upon the victim ; and it now 



GRAY 463 

requires a very considerable force to open the trap. If nothing 
is caught, the trap presently reopens of itself and is ready for 
another attempt. When a fly or any similar insect is captured it 
is retained until it perishes, — is killed, indeed, and consumed ; 
after which it opens for another capture. But after the first or 
second it acts sluggishly and feebly, it ages and hardens, at length 
loses its sensibility, and slowly decays. 

It can not be supposed that plants, like boys, catch flies for 
pastime or in objectless wantonness. Living beings though they 
are, yet they are not of a sufficiently high order for that. It is 
equally incredible that such an exquisite apparatus as this should 
be purposeless. And in the present case the evidence of the 
purpose and of the meaning of the strange action is well-nigh 
complete. The face of this living trap is thickly sprinkled with 
glands immersed in its texture, of elaborate structure under the 
microscope, but large enough to be clearly discerned with a hand- 
lens ; these glands, soon after an insect is closed upon, give out 
a saliva-like liquid, which moistens the insect, and in a short 
time (within a week) dissolves all its soft parts, — digests them, 
we must believe ; and the liquid, with the animal matter it has 
dissolved, is re-absorbed into the leaf ! We are forced to con- 
clude that, in addition to the ordinary faculties and functions of 
a vegetable, this plant is really carnivorous. 

That, while all plants are food for animals, some few should, 
in turn and to some extent, feed upon them, will appear more 
credible when it is considered that whole tribes of plants of the 
lowest grade (Mould- Fungi and the like) habitually feed upon 
living plants and living animals, or upon their juices when dead. 
An account of them would make a volume of itself, and an 
interesting one. But all goes to show that the instances of ex- 
traordinary behavior which have been recounted in these chap- 
ters are not mere prodigies, wholly out of the general order of 
Nature, but belong to the order of Nature, and indeed are 
hardly different in kind from, or really more wonderful than, 
the doings of many of the commonest plants, which, until our 
special attention is called to them, ordinarily pass unregarded. 



464 



CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 



DANA 

1813- 

Professor James Dvvight Dana, the eminent geologist and naturalist, 
was born at Utica, New York, in 1813. At the age of twenty he graduated 
at Yale College. Devoting himself assiduously to scientific studies, he soon 
acquired a reputation which justified his appointment to be the geologist and 





>E/^5^^*vtv ^ . ^-^ju^.s<vV 



mineralogist of Commodore Wilkes's Exploring Expedition, sent out by the 
United States government in 1838. During his four years' absence in this 
capacity he gathered materials for his notable contributions to the literature 
of science. Among these are his " Report on Zoophytes," " Report on the 
Geology of the Pacific," and " Report on Crustacea." Before his departure 
with this expedition he published his " System of Mineralogy," the fourth 
edition of which was issued in 1854, and the descriptive part of the fifth in 1868. 
In 1850 he was called to the chair of Natural History and Geology at Yale 



DANA 



465 



University, but did not enter upon its duties until five years later. Since 1846 
he has been a principal editor of the " American Journal of Science." Pro- 
fessor Dana's " Manual of Geology " is a standard text-book. His latest 
work is a volume entitled " Corals and Coral Islands." He has long been 
recognized in the scientific circles of Europe as one of the foremost living 
naturalists ; he is a member of many European scientific societies, and of the 
French Academy. Professor Dana has been a close observer of Nature, and 
his special qualifications for scientific investigation are supplemented by 
intellectual powers which admirably fit him for the office of leader and 
instructor in his chosen department of science. 



KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE 
I. 

When man, at the word of his Maker, stood up to receive his 
birthright, God pronounced a benediction, and gave him this 
commission : "Replenish the earth : subdue it: a7id have domin- 
ion over every living thing.'' ^ 

" Subdue and have dominion.'' These were the first recorded 
words that fell on the human ear ; and Heaven's blessing was 
in them. 

But what is this subduing of the earth? How is Nature 
brought under subjection? Man's highest glory consists in obe- 
dience to the Eternal Will ; and in this case, is he actually taking 
the rems into his own hands? Far from it. He is but yielding 
submission. He is learning that will, and placing himself, as 
Bacon has said, in direct subserviency to divine laws. When he 
sets his sails, and drives over the waves before the blast, feeling 
the pride of power in that the gale has been broken into a will- 
ing steed, he still looks up reverently, and acknowledges that 
God in nature has been his teacher, and is his strength. When 
he strikes the rock, and out flows the brilliant metal, he admits 
that it is in obedience to a higher will than his own, and a re- 
ward of careful searching for truth, in complete subjection to that 
will. When he yokes together a plate of copper and zinc, and 
urges them to action by a cup of acid, and then dispatches 

30 



466 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

burdens of thought on errands of thousands of miles, — man may 
indeed claim that he has Nature at his bid, subdued, a willing 
messenger; and yet it is so because man himself acts in per- 
fect obedience to law. He may well feel exalted ; but his exal- 
tation proceeds from the fact that he has drawn from a higher 
source of strength than himself. 

These are the rewards of an humble and teachable spirit, 
kneeling at the shrine of Nature ; and if there is indeed that for- 
getfulness of self, and that unalloyed love of truth, which alone 
can insure the highest success in research, this shrine will be 
viewed as only the portal to a holier temple, where God reigns 
in his purity and love. 

The command, "subdue, and have dominion," is, then, a 
mark both of man's power and of God's power. It requires 
man to study his Maker's works, that he may adapt himself to 
his laws, and use them to his advantage ; to become wise, that he 
may be strong ; to elevate and ennoble mind, that matter may 
take its true place of subjection. It involves not merely a study 
of Nature in the ordinary sense of those words, but also a study 
of man himself, and the utmost exaltation of the moral and men- 
tal qualities ; for man is a part of Nature ; and moreover, to 
understand the teachings of Infinite Wisdom, the largest expan- 
sion of intellect and loftiest elevation of soul are requisite. 

Solomon says, that, in his day, there was '' nothing new under 
the sun." What is, is what has been, and what shall be. The 
sentiment was not prompted by any modern scientific spirit, — 
impatience of so little progress ; for it is immediately connected 
with sighings for the good old times. Much the same spirit is 
often shown in these days, and elaborate addresses are sometimes 
written to prove that, after all our boasted progress, Egypt and 
Greece were the actual sources of existing knowledge. They 
point to the massy stones of the pyramids ; the sublime temples 
and palaces of the old empires ; the occasional utensils of half- 
transparent glass, and implements of bronze or iron, found aniong 
their buried ruins ; the fine fabrics and costly Tyrian dyes. They 
descant upon the wonderful perfection attained in the fine arts, in 



DANA 467 

poetry and rhetoric, and the profound thought of the ancient 
philosophers, and then are ahnost ready to echo, " There is noth- 
ing new under the sun." 

But what had those old philosophers, or the whole ancient 
world, done toward bringing Nature under subjection, in obedi- 
ence to the command, ''Subdue it"? They had, it is true, built 
magnificent temples. But the taste of the architect, or that 
of the statuary or poet, is simply an emanation from the divine 
breath within man, and is cultivated by contemplation, and only 
surface contact with Nature. They piled up Cyclopean rocks 
into walls and pyramids. But the use of the lever and pulley 
comes also from the workings of mind, and but shallow views of 
the world. And adding man to man till thousands have worked 
together, as in one harness, has been a common feat of despots 
from the time of the Pharaohs onward. They educed profound 
systems of philosophy, showing a depth of thought since unsur- 
passed. But these again were the results of cogitating mind, 
acting in its own might, — glancing, it m.ay be, at the landscape 
and the stars in admiration, but centering on man and mind; 
and often proving to be as erroneous as profound. They culti- 
vated the intellect, and made progress in political knowledge. 
But in their attempts to control Nature, they brought to bear 
little beyond Jiiere physical force. 

Although ancient wisdom treats of air, earth, fire, and water, 
not one of these so-called elements was,' in any proper sense, 
brought under subjection. 

The Air, — was it subdued when the old Roman still preferred 
his banks of oars, and on the land, the wind was trained only 
to turn a wind-mill, carry off chaff, or work in a bellows? 

Was the Earth subdued, when, instead of being forced to pour 
out in streams its wealth of various ores, but half-a-dozen metals 
were known? and, instead of being explored and found to be 
marshaled, for man's command, under sixty or more elements, 
each with its laws of combination, and all bound to serve the arts, 
the wisest minds saw only a mass of earth, something to tread 
upon, and grow grain and grass ? 



468 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Was Fire subdued, when almost its only uses were to warm, and 
cook, and to bake clay, and few of its other powers were known, 
besides those of destruction? or Light, when not even its com- 
ponent colors were recognized, and it served simply as a means 
of sight, in which man shared its use with brutes? 

Was Water subdued when it was left to run wild along the 
watercourses, and its ocean-waves were a terror to all the sailors 
of the age ? when steam was only the ephemeral ^ vapor of a boil- 
ing kettle, yet unknown in its might, and unharnessed? when the 
clouds sent their shafts where they willed? when the constituents 
of water — the life-element oxygen and the inflammable hydrogen 
— had not yet yielded themselves to man as his vassals ? 



II. 

Hardly the initial step had been taken, through the thousands 
of years of the earth's existence, to acquire that control of Nature 
which mind should have, and God had ordered. The sciences 
of observation and experiment had not emerged from the mists 
of empiricism ^ and superstition. There were few ascertained 
principles beyond those that flow from mathematical law, or from 
cogitations of mind after surface surveys of the world. 

No wonder that Nature unsubdued should have proved herself 
a tyrant. She is powerful. Vast might is embodied in her forces, 
that may well strike t'error into the uninstructed ; and man has 
shown his greatness in that he has at last dared to claim obedi- 
ence. The air, earth, water, fire, had become filled with fancied 
fiends, which any priest or priestess could evoke ; and even the 
harmless moon, or two approaching or receding planets, or the 
accidental flight of a thoughtless bird, caused fearful forebodings ; 
and a long-tailed comet made the whole world to shake with 
terror. 

1 from Gr. ^//, " over," and /lemera, "a day;" hence, lasting over a day, 
or but a little time 

2 from Gr. efi, ''■ in," and peira, " trial ; " hence, merely experimental 
observation 



DANA 469 

Christianity, although radiant with hope, could not wholly 
break the spell. The Christian's trust, Heaven's best gift to man, 
makes the soul calm and strong mid dangers, real or unreal ; yet 
it leaves the sources of terror in Nature untouched, to be assailed 
by that power which comes from knowledge. Man thus suffered 
for his disobedience. He was the slave, — Nature, the feared 
master ; to many, even the evil demon himself. Is this now true 
of Nature? We know that, to a large extent. Nature is yet un- 
searched and unsubdued. Still, vast progress has been made 
toward gaining control of her ten thousand agencies. In gather- 
ing this knowledge, we have not sought for it among the faded 
monuments and rolls of the ancients, as we call the inhabitants of 
the earth's childhood, but have looked to records of vaster an- 
tiquity, — the writings of the infinite God in creation, which are 
now as fresh with beauty and wisdom as when His finger first 
mapped out the heavens, or traced the flowers and crystals of the 
earth. This is the fountain whence we have drawn ; and what is 
the result? 

How is it with Water in these last times? Instead'of wasting 
its powers in gambols down valleys, or in sluggish quiet about 
'' sleepy hollows," it is trained to toil. With as much glee as it 
ever displayed running and leaping in its free channel, a single 
stream now turns over a million of spindles in this New England. 
Changed to steam, there is terror in its strength even now. Yet 
the laws of steam, of its production, condensation, and elasticity, 
have been so carefully studied, and also the strength and other 
qualities of the metal used to confine it, as well as the nature 
and effects of fuel, that, if we are careful not to defy established 
principles, steam is our most willing worker, — turning saw-mills, 
printing-presses, cotton-gins ; speeding over our roads with indefi- 
nite trains of carriages and freight ; bearing away floating man- 
sions, against wind and tide, across the oceans ; cooking, heating, 
searching out dyes from coarse logwood, and the like ; and apply- 
ing itself to useful purposes, one way or another, in almost aU the 
arts. Again, if we will it, and follow Nature's laws, water gives 
up its oxygen and hydrogen, and thus the chemist secures the 



470 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

means of burning even the diamond ; the aeronaut makes wings 
for his adventurous flight, and the hghthouse derives the famous 
Drummond Hght for its work of mercy. 

Light is no longer a mere colorless medium of sight. We may 
evoke from it any color we please, either for use or pleasure. We 
may also take its chemical rays from the rest, or its light rays, or 
its heat rays, and employ them separately or together ; for we 
have found out where its strength lies in these particulars, so that 
at will, light may pass from our manipulations, shorn of its heating 
power, or of its power of promoting growth, or chemical change. 
Ay, the subtile agent will now use its pencil in taking sketches 
from Nature, or portraits, if we desire it ; and the work is well 
done. 

The ancient wise men, discoursing on the power which holds 
matter together, sometimes attributed to the particles convenient 
hooks for clinging to one another. Little was it dreamed that 
the force of combination in matter — now called attraction — 
included the lightning among its effects, and would be made to 
run errands and do hard work for man. Electricity, galvanism, 
magnetism, are modern names for some of the different moods 
under which this agent appears; and none of Nature's powers 
now do better service. It is kept on constant run with messages 
over the continents, scaling mountains or traversing seas with 
equal facility. It does our gilding and silver-plating. Give it an 
engraved plate as a copy, and it will make a hundred such in a 
short time. If taken into employ, it will, in case of fire, set all 
the bells of a city ringing at once ; or it will strike a common 
beat for all the clocks of a country ; or be the astronomer's best 
and surest aid in observing phases in the heavens, or measuring 
longitude on the earth. i\ll this and more it accompUshes for us. 

Nature is not now full of gloom and terror. Her fancied fiends 
have turned out friends. Although God still holds supreme control, 
and often makes man remember whence his strength, yet every 
agent, however mighty in itself, is becoming a gentle and ready 
assistant, both in our work and play, — in the material progress of 
nations, as well as their moral and intellectual advancement. 



THREE BRITISH NOI/ELISTS 471 

THREE BRITISH NOVELISTS 

THACKERAY — DICKENS — "GEORGE ELIOT" 

THE records of public libraries and the accounts of 
booksellers point to the conclusion that no agency, 
except perhaps the newspaper, can compare in influence 
with the novel. The novel is popular because it is the 
most interesting of literary forms. To interest us is, in 
fact, one of the avowed purposes that the novelist sets out 
with. From him the young derive much of their moral 
teaching, and no small share of their information. The 
impressions of life which we receive from works of fiction 
are almost as vavid as those we receive from what is sroincr 

o o 

on in the world about us, and by them many of our opin- 
ions and habits of thought are insensibly molded. The vast 
influence of this species of writing has been mainly good, 
because from the times of Goldsmith and Scott till now, 
the great English novelists have been men of high ideals. 

All but a fraction of the best novels of our literature 
have been written in the present century. The works of 
Scott and Bulwer have already been represented in this 
book by selections that appeared in their proper chrono- 
logical places. In addition to their historical novels, these 
two writers have fully portrayed for us life and manners, — 
the one of Scotland, the other of England. The influence 
of both has been elevating. 

Of later English novelists, the three — Dickens, Thack- 
eray, and " George Eliot" — from whose works the accom- 
panying pieces are chosen are indisputably the greatest. 
These writers, while afl"ording healthful entertainment to 
hundreds of thousands of readers, have also giv^en expres- 
sion to the best tendencies of our time, and their influence 
for good can not be estimated. Dickens celebrated the love 



472 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

of the fireside ; from him well-to-do readers learned of the 
trials and the virtues of the lowly ; he stirred public sym- 
pathy for the oppressed, in workhouses, in prisons, in 
schools. It was Thackeray's task to unmask vulgarity in 
high life, and to pillory meanness and wickedness every- 
where. '* George Eliot " held up the mirror to the tragedy 
and the comedy of common lives. 

Among novels of definite purpose, a high place must be 
assigned to several of Charles Reade's. His " Never too 
Late to Mend " was directed against prison abuses, and 
his " Very Hard Cash " led to reforms in the treatment of 
the insane. 

Maria Edgeworth, Charles Lever, John Banim, and 
Samuel Lover have written the best novels of Irish life. 
TroUope's numerous works give faithful pictures of con- 
temporary English society. From Captain Marry att, 
Michael Scott, and Clarke Russell we have powerful tales 
of the sea. Thomas Hughes, in his *' Tom Brown " sto- 
ries, has made effective appeal to all that is healthful and 
noble in boyish nature. Miss Braddon, Edmund Yates, 
and Wilkie Collins have produced many novels of the 
emotional order. To Benjamin Disraeli — more eminent in 
affairs than in letters — we owe several highly imaginative 
works of fiction, the most famous of which is his *' Lo- 
thair." From George Borrow, who tran.slated the Bible 
into the Romany tongue, we have two striking tales of 
gypsy life, — *' Lavengro," and "The Romany Rye." 

The many novels " by the author of * John Halifax, 
Gentleman ' " (Mrs. Craik), with their noble views of life, 
have afforded a wholesome stimulus to two generations of 
young people. Another woman novelist, Charlotte Bronte, 
is famous for her *'Jane Eyre.'' Of contemporary British 
novelists, three are writers whose work must become 
classic, — William Black, Robert Louis Stevenson, and 
Richard D. Blackmore. 



THACKERAY 



A71 



THACKERAY 

1811-1863 

William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta in 1811, but 
was sent to England while a child, and educated in the Charterhouse School 
— immortalized in " The Newcomes " — and at Cambridge University. On 
the death of his parents he found himself in possession of a handsome for- 
tune ; but that soon vanished, and he was compelled to earn a livelihood. 




He dallied with Law, courted Art with greater earnestness, and finally — a 
resolution for which the lovers of high fiction will never cease to be grateful 
— resolved to devote himself to Literature. His first essay in letters was in 
journalism ; he wrote for the Times, The Nezu Monthly Magazine, and Punch, 
to which last periodical he contributed the inimitable " Snob Papers," 
"Jeames's Diary," etc. His first volume, " The Paris Sketch-Book," was 
published in 1840, and was followed during the next seven years by collec- 
tions of essays, sketches, etc. In 1848 appeared his first novel, " Vanity 
Fair," — one of the masterpieces of English fiction. Two years later " The 



474 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

History of Pendennis" was given to the world, — a story which, if it did not 
enhance the author's reputation, confirmed his title to a high place among 
English novelists. " The History of Henry Esmond," " The Virginians," 
and "The Newcomes," appeared at short intervals; the last, which was 
issued in 1855, being pronounced by high literary authority his masterpiece. 
"Lovel the Widower" appeared in 1S61, " The Adventures of Philip" in 
1862, and at his death, the next year, he left unfinished a novel called 
"Denis Duval." "The Four Georges" consisted of lectures which were 
first delivered in the principal American cities. 

While Thackeray's writings were comparatively neglected in England, 
they enjoyed an extensive popularity in the United States. He was a keen 
student of human nature, quick to recognize and to denounce its weak- 
nesses ; yet he found his deepest pleasure in depicting its lovely features and 
recording its noblest manifestations. The character of Colonel Newcome is 
unsurpassed, if equaled, as a type of sterling manhood ; the memory of it 
lingers in the reader's mind, softening and refining. Thackeray's humor was 
nimble rather than rich ; but it is not, though commonly held to be, a very 
important component of his intellectual strength. He was a reformer who 
exposed and denounced social wrongs, not with rude force, but with polished 
satire. The selection which follows is taken from " The Newcomes.'' 



LAST DAYS OF COLONEL NEWCOME 

In a brief narrative, broken by more honest tears, Fred 
Bayham, as we paced up and down the court, told me what had 
happened. The old man must have passed a sleepless night, for 
on going to his chamber in the morning, his attendant found him 
dressed in his chair, and his bed undisturbed. He must have 
sat all through the bitter night without a fire ; but his hands were 
burning hot, and he rambled in his talk. He spoke of some one 
coming to drink tea with him, pointed to the fire, and asked why 
it was not made ; he would not go to bed, though the nurse 
pressed him". The bell began to ring for morning chapel ; he got 
up and went toward his gown, groping toward it as though he 
could hardly see, and put it over his shoulders, and would go out, 
but he would have fallen in the court if the good nurse had not 
given him her arm ; and the physician of the hospital, passing 
fortunately at this moment, who had always been a great friend 



THACKERAY 475 

of Colonel Newcome's, insisted upon leading him back to his 
room again, and got him to bed. '- When the bell stopped, he 
wanted to rise once more ; he fancied he was a boy at school 
again," said the nurse, " and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, 
who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago." So it was, 
that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, 
that reprieve came too late. Grief, and years, and humiliation, 
and care, and cruelty had been too strong for him, and Thomas 
Newcome was stricken down. ... 

Clive used to go daily to Grey Friars, where the Colonel still 
lay ill. After some days the fever which had attacked him left 
him ; but left him so weak and enfeebled that he could only go 
from his bed to the chair by his fireside. The season was ex- 
ceedingly bitter, the chamber which he inhabited was warm and 
spacious ; it was considered unadvisable to move him until he 
had attained greater strength, and till warmer weather. The 
medical men of the House hoped he might rally in spring. My 
friend Dr. Goodenough came to him : he hoped too ; but not 
with a hopeful face. A chamber, luckily vacant, hard by the 
Colonel's, was assigned to his friends, where we sat when we 
were too many for him. Besides his customary attendant, he had 
two dear and watchful nurses, who were almost always with him, 
— Ethel and Madame de Florae, who had passed many a faith- 
ful year by an old man's bedside ; who would have come, as to 
a work of religion, to any sick couch, — much more to this one, 
where he lay for whose life she would once gladly have given 
her own. 

But our Colonel, we all were obliged to acknowledge, was no 
more our friend of old days. He knew us again, and was good 
to every one round him, as his wont was ; especially when Boy 
came, his old eyes lighted up with simple happiness, and, with 
eager, trembling hands, he would seek under his bed-clothes, or 
the pockets of his dressing-gown, for toys or cakes, which he had 
caused to be purchased for his grandson. There was a little 
laughing, red-cheeked, white-headed gown-boy of the school, to 
whom the old man had taken a great fancy. One of the symp- 
toms of his returning consciousness and recovery, as we hoped, 



476 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

was his calling for this child, who pleased our friend by his arch- 
ness and merry ways, and who, to the old gentleman's unfailing 

delight, used to call him " Codd Colonel." "Tell little F 

that Codd Colonel wants to see him ;" and the little gown-boy 
was brought to him ; and the Colonel would listen to him for 
hours ; and hear all about his lessons and his play ; and prattle, 
almost as childishly, about Dr. Raine, and his own early school- 
days. The boys of the school, it must be said, had heard the 
noble old gentleman's touching history, and had all got to know 
and love him. They came every day to hear news of him ; sent 
him in books and papers to amuse him ; and som.e benevolent 
young souls — God's blessing on all honest boys, say I — 
painted theatrical characters, and sent them in to Codd Colonel's 
grandson. The little fellow was made free of gown- boys, and 
once came thence to his grandfather in a little gown, which de- 
lighted the old man hugely. Boy said he would like to be a 
little gown-boy ; and I make no doubt, when he is old enough, 
his father will get him that post, and put him under the tuition 
of my friend Dr. Senior. 

So weeks passed away, during which our dear old friend still 
remained with us. His mind was gone at intervals, but would 
rally feebly ; and with his consciousness returned his love, his 
simplicity, his sweetness. He would talk French with Madame 
de Florae, at which time his memory appeared to awaken with 
surprising vividness, his cheek flushed, and he was a youth 
again, — a youth all love and hope, — a stricken old man, with 
a beard as white as snow covering the noble, careworn face. At 
such times he called her by her Christian name of Leonore ; he 
addressed courtly old words of regard and kindness to the aged 
lady ; anon he wandered in his talk, and spoke to her as if they 
still were young. Now, as in those early days, his heart was 
pure ; no anger remained in it ; no guile tainted it : only peace 
and good- will dwelt in it. 

Rosey's death had seemed to shock him for a while when the 
unconscious little boy spoke of it. Before that circumstance 
Clive had even forborne to wear mourning, lest the news should 
agitate his father. The Colonel remained silent and was very 



THACKERAY 



A77 



much disturbed all that day, but he never appeared to compre- 
hend the fact quite ; and once or twice afterward asked why she 
did not come to see him ? She was prevented, he supposed, — 
she was prevented, he said, with a look of terror ; he never once 
otherwise alluded to that unlucky tyrant of his household, who 
had made his last years so unhappy. 

The circumstance of Clive's legacy he never understood ; but 
more than once spoke of Barnes to Ethel, and sent his com- 
pliments to him, and said he should like to shake him by the 
hand. Barnes Newcome never once offered to touch that 
honored hand, though his sister bore her uncle's message to 
him. They came often from Bryanstone Square ; Mrs. Hobson 
even offered to sit with the Colonel, and read to him, and 
brought him books for his improvement. But her presence 
disturbed him ; he cared not for her books ; the two nurses 
whom he loved, faithfully watched him ; and my wife and I were 
admitted to him sometimes, both of whom he honored with 
regard and recognition. As for F. B.. in order to be near his 
Colonel, did not that good fellow take up his lodging in 
Cistercian Lane, at the '-Red Cow"? He is one whose errors, 
let us hope, shall be pardoned, qj/ia multum amavit. I am sure 
he felt ten times more joy at hearing of Clive's legacy, than if 
thousands had been bequeathed to himself. May good health 
and good fortune speed him ! 

. The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began to 
flicker and fail. One evening the Colonel left his chair for his 
bed in pretty good spirits, but passed a disturbed night, and the 
next morning was too weak to rise. Then he remained in his 
bed, and his friends visited him there. One afternoon he asked 
for his little gown-boy, and the child was brought to him, and sat 
by the bed with a very awe-stricken face ; and then gathered 
courage, and tried to amuse him by telling him how it was 
a half-holiday, and they were having a cricket-match with the 
St. Peter's boys in the green, and Grey Friars was in and winning. 
The Colonel quite understood about it ; he would like to see the 
game ; he had played many a game on that green when he was 
a boy. He grew excited ; Clive dismissed his father's little 



4/8 CAT H CARTS LITERARY READER 

friend, and put a sovereign into his hand ; and away he ran to 
say that Codd Colonel had come into a fortune, and to buy tarts, 
and to see the match out. /, curre, little white-haired gown-boy ! 
Heaven speed you, little friend ! 

After the child had gone, Thomas Newcome began to wander 
more and more. He talked louder ; he gave the word of com- 
mand, spoke Hindustanee as if to his men. Then he spoke 
words in French rapidly, seizing a hand that was near him, and 
crying, "Toujours, toujours ! " But it was Ethel's hand which 
he took. Ethel and Clive and the nurse were in the room with 
him ; the nurse came to us, who were sitting in the adjoining apart- 
ment ; Madame de Florae was there, with ray wife and Bayham. 

At the look in the woman's countenance Madame de Florae 
started up. " He is very bad, he wanders a great deal," the 
nurse whispered. The French lady fell instantly on her knees, 
and remained rigid in prayer. 

Some time afterwards Ethel came in with a scared face to our 
pale group. "■ He is calling for you again, dear lady," she said, 
going up to Madame de Florae, who was still kneeling, " and just 
now he said he wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. He 
will not know you." She hid her tears as she spoke. 

She went into the room where Clive was at the bed's foot ; the 
old man within it talked on rapidly for a while : then again he 
would sigh and be still : once more I heard him say hurriedly, 
''Take care of him when I'm in India;" and then, with a 
heart-rending voice he called out, ^' Leonore, Leonore ! " She 
was kneeling by his side now. The patient's voice sank into faint 
murmurs ; only a moan now and then announced that he was 
not asleep. 

At the usual evening hour the chapel-bell began to toll, and 
Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time. 
And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over 
his face, and he lifted up his head a httle, and quickly said 
'^Adsum ! " and fell back. It was the word we used at school, 
when names were called ; and lo, he, whose heart was as that 
of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the 
presence of The Master. 



DICKENS 



479 



DICKENS 

1812-1870 

Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth, England, in 18 12, and died 
June 9, 1870. His father was at one time a reporter of parliamentary de- 
bates, and the son adopted the same calling. He became attached to the 
Morning Chronicle, and in its columns first appeared " Sketches by Boz," 




afterwards published in book form, 1836-37. These Sketches had a very 
cordial reception, and their success induced a publisher to engage Dickens 
and the artist Seymour to prepare an illustrated narrative of the adventures 
of a party of Cockney sportsmen. The result of this contract was " The 
Pickwick Papers," which at once became the most popular book of the day. 
It was followed at short intervals by " Nicholas Nickleby," " Oliver Twist," 
"The Old Curiosity Shop," and '* Barnaby Rudge." In 1842 Dickens visited 
America, where he had a very cordial reception. In his "American Notes" 



480 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

and in " Chuzzlevvit," both written soon afterwards, he dwelt with the 
severity which is inseparable from caricature (and Dickens was not only 
a literary artist and social reformer, but also a caricaturist) upon some of 
the obvious vanities and weaknesses of the American people. 

In 1853 he began to give public readings from his own books, and was 
no less successful as a reader than he had been as a writer. In 1868 he 
visited America for the second time, and gave readings in the principal 
cities to immense and delighted audiences. During the last year of his 
life he was engaged on a novel, " The Mystery of Edwin Drood," which 
he left unfinished. His death was sudden, and the announcement of it 
caused grief throughout the English-speaking world. " The Pickwick 
Papers," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "Nicholas Nickleby," and "David Cop- 
perfield," are generally esteemed the best of his books; the last is spe- 
cially interesting as being largely autobiographical. His later novels, 
" Great Expectations " and " Our Mutual Friend," were less popular than 
their predecessors. 

Among English novelists Dickens stands alone ; he occupies a field that 
none other has cultivated. He was a man of strong sympathies, quick to 
feel and plead for the poor and oppressed, and in his books he has done 
great service in the work of social and legal reform. His most conspicuous 
characteristic is humor, — natural, rich, and seemingly inexhaustible. The 
secret of his success seems to have consisted in an intuitive apprehension 
of popular needs and tastes. 



MR. PICKWICK'S DILEMMA 

Mr. Pickwick's apartments in Goswell Street, although on a 
hmited scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable 
description, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of 
his genius and observation. 

His landlady, Mrs. Bardell, — the relict ^ and sole executrix of 
a deceased custom-house officer, — was a comely woman of bus- 
tling manners and agreeable appearance, with a natural genius' for 
cooking, improved by study and long practice into an exquisite 
talent. There were no children, no servants, no fowls. The 
only other inmates of the house were a large man and a small 
boy, — the first a lodger, the second a production of Mrs. Bardell's. 

1 widow ; Lat. relictus, left behind 



DICKENS 481 

The large man was always home precisely at ten o'clock at night, 
at which hour he regularly condensed himself into the limits of a 
dwarfish French bedstead in the back parlor ; and the infantine 
sports and gymnastic exercises of Master Bardell were exclusively 
confined to the neighboring pavements and gutters. Cleanliness 
and quiet reigned throughout the house, and in it Mr. Pickwick's 
will was law. 

To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic econ- 
omy of the establishment, and conversant with the admirable reg- 
ulation of Mr. Pickwick's mind, his appearance and behavior, on 
the morning previous to that which had been fixed upon for the 
journey to Eatanswill, would have been most mysterious and un- 
accountable. He paced the room to and fro with hurried steps, 
popped his head out of the window at intervals of about three 
minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and exhibited 
many other manifestations of impatience very unusual with him. 
It was evident that something of great importance was in con- 
templation ; but what that something was, not even Mrs. Bardell 
herself had been enabled to discover. 

" Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as that amiable 
female approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the 
apartment. 

"Sir," said Mrs. Bardell. 

"Your little boy is a very long time gone." 

"Why, it 's a good long way to the Borough, sir," remonstrated 
Mrs. Bardell. 

"Ah ! " said Mr. Pickwick, "very true; so it is." 

Mr. Pickwick relapsed into silence, and Mrs. Bardell resumed 
her dusting. 

"Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of a few 
minutes. 

"Sir," said Mrs. Bardell again. 

" Do you think it 's a much greater expense to keep two people 
than to keep one? " 

"La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, coloring up to the very 
border of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of mat- 
s' 



482 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

rimonial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger, — " la, Mr. Pickwick, 
what a question ! " 

"Well, but do you? " inquired Mr. Pickwick. 

"That depends," said Mrs. Bardell, approaching the duster 
very near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the 
table, — " that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, 
Mr. Pickwick; and whether it's a saving and careful person, sir." 

"That's very true," said Mr. Pickwick; "but the person I 
have in my eye ■" (here he looked very hard at Mrs. Bardell) " I 
think possesses these qualities ; and has, moreover, a considerable 
knowledge of the world, and a great deal of sharpness, Mrs. 
Bardell, which may be of material use to me." 

" La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, the crimson rising to 
her cap-border again. 

" I do," said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont 
in speaking of a subject which interested him, — " I do indeed ; 
and to tell you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind." 

"Dear me, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell. 

"You'll think it not very strange, now," said the amiable Mr. 
Pickwick, with a good-humored glance at his companion, " that I 
never consulted you about this matter, and never mentioned it, 
till I sent your little boy out this morning, — eh? " 

Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long wor- 
shipped Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, 
raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant 
hopes had never dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going 
to propose, — a deliberate plan, too ; sent her little boy to 
the Borough to get him out of the way. How thoughtful, how 
considerate ! 

"Well," said Mr. Pickwick, "what do you think ? " 

"Oh, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agita- 
tion, " you 're very kind, sir." 

" It will save you a great deal of trouble, won't it? " said Mr. 
Pickwick. 

" Oh, I never thought anything of the trouble, sir," replied Mrs. 
Bardell ; " and of course I should take more trouble to please 



DICKENS 483 

you then than ever. But it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to 
have so much consideration for my loneUness." 

''Ah, to be sure," said Mr. Pickwick; "I never thought of 
that. When I am in town, you '11 always have somebody to sit 
with you. To be sure, so you will." 

" I 'm sure I ought to be a very happy woman," said Mrs. 
Bardell. 

"And your little boy — "said Mr. Pickwick. 

"Bless his heart," interposed Mrs. Bardell, with a maternal sob. 

"He, too, will have a companion," resumed Mr. Pickwick, — 
" a lively one, who '11 teach him, I '11 be bound, more tricks in a 
week than he would ever learn in a year." And Mr. Pickwick 
smiled placidly. 

" Oh, you dear — " said Mrs. Bardell. 

Mr. Pickwick started. 

"Oh, you kind, good, playful dear," said Mrs. Bardell; and 
without more ado she rose from her chair and flung -her arms 
round Mr. Pickwick's neck, with a cataract of tears and a chorus 
of sobs. 

"Bless my soul!" cried the astonished Mr. Pickwick, "Mrs. 
Bardell, my good woman ! Dear me, what a situation ; pray con- 
sider. Mrs. Bardell, don't; if anybody should come — " 

"Oh, let them come," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, frantically. 
"I'll never leave you, dear, kind, good soul;" and with these 
words Mrs. Bardell clung the tighter. 

"' Mercy upon me ! " said Mr. Pickwick, struggling violently, 
" I hear somebody coming up the stairs. Don't, don't, there 's 
a good creature, don't." 

But entreaty and remonstrance were ahke unavailing, for 
Mrs. Bardell had fainted in Mr. Pickwick's arms ; and before 
he could gain time to deposit her on a chair, Master Bardell 
entered the room, ushering in Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and 
Mr. Snodgrass. 

Mr. Pickwick was struck motionless and speechless. He stood 
with his lovely burden in his arms, gazing vacantly on the counte- 
nances of his friends, without the slightest attempt at recognition 



484 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

or explanation. They, in their turn, stared at him, and Master 
Bardell, in his turn, stared at everybody. 

The astonishment of the Pickwickians ^ was so absorbing, and 
the perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so extreme, that they might 
have remained in exactly the same relative situations until the 
suspended animation of the lady was restored, had it not been 
for a most beautiful and touching expression of filial affection on 
the part of her youthful son. Clad in a tight suit of corduroy, 
spangled with brass buttons of a very considerable size, he at 
first stood at the door astounded and uncertain ; but by degrees 
the impression that his mother must have suffered some personal 
damage pervaded his partially developed mind, and considering 
Mr. Pickwick the aggressor, he set up an appalling and semi- 
earthly kind of howling, and butting forward with his head, com- 
menced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back and 
legs with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm and 
the violence of his excitement allowed. 

"Take this little villain away," said the agonized Mr. Pickwick ; 
" he 's mad." 

"What is the matter?" said the three tongue-tied Pickwickians. 

"I don't know," replied Mr. Pickwick, pettishly. "Take away 
the boy" (here Mr. Winkle carried the interesting boy, scream- 
ing and struggling, to the farther end of the apartment) . " Now 
help me to lead this woman downstairs." 

" Oh, I 'm better now," said Mrs. Bardell, faintly. 

" Let me lead you downstairs," said the ever-gallant Mr. 
Tupman. 

"Thank you, sir, — thank you," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, hysteri- 
cally. And downstairs she was led accordingly, accompanied by 
her affectionate son. 

" I can not conceive," said Mr. Pickwick, when his friend 
returned, — "I can not conceive what has been the matter with 
that woman. I had merely announced to her my intention of 
keeping a man-servant, when she fell into the extraordinary par- 
oxysm in which you found her. Very extraordinary thing ! " 

1 the three gentlemen who had just entered 



DICKENS 485 

*' Very," said his three friends. 

"Placed me in such an extremely awkward situation," continued 
Mr. Pickwick. 

"Very," was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, 
and looked dubiously at each other. 

This behavior was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He remarked 
their incredulity. They evidently suspected him. 

"There is a man in the passage now," said Mr. Tupman. 

"It's the man that I spoke to you about," said Mr. Pickwick. 
" I sent for him to the Borough this morning. Have the goodness 
to call him up, Snodgrass." 



I HAVE not the least belief in the Noble Savage. I consider 
him a prodigious nuisance and an enormous superstition. His 
calhng rum fire-water, and me a pale-face, wholly fail to recon- 
cile me to him. I don't care what he calls me. I call him a 
savage. I think a mere gent (which I take to be the lowest 
form of civilization) better than a howling, whistling, clucking, 
stamping, jumping, tearing savage. 

Yet it is extraordinary to observe how some people will talk 
about him, as they talk about the good old times ; how they will 
regret his disappearance, in the course of this world's develop- 
ment, from such and such lands, — where his absence is a blessed 
relief and an indispensable preparation for the sowing of the very 
first seeds of an influence that can exalt humanity, — how, even 
with the evidence of himself before them, they will either be 
determined to beheve, or will suffer themselves to be persuaded 
into beHeving, that he is something which their five senses tell 
them he is not. — From " A/nerican Notes''' 



486 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



GEORGE ELIOT 



1820-1881 



George Eliot (Marian Evans Lewes) was born at Nuneaton, in War- 
wickshire, in November, 1820, and died in London, in January, 1881. Of her 
early life little is publicly known. At the age of thirty she took up her resi- 
dence in London, where she formed friendships with several men eminent 




in letters and in public life. By these she was at once recognized as the 
possessor of exceptional genius. 

The next five years of her life were years of laborious study and writing. 
She became an accomplished linguist, and translated several ethical works 
from the German. She contributed some notable essays to the Westminster 
Review. Then, in 1857, she published anonymously in Blackwood^s Magazine 
her '* Scenes from Clerical Life." This was followed, the next year, by her 
first ambitious novel " Adam Bede," and its reception fully justified the 
anticipations of her literary sponsors. A few years later it was followed by 



GEORGE ELIOT 487 

"The Mill on the Floss" and "Romola." All these were published over 
the pen-name which she had adopted, and by which she will always be re- 
membered, of " George Eliot." With each production her fame increased, 
and for many years she held rank among the first novelists of this century. 
Her last novels, " Middlemarch " and "Daniel Deronda," had an almost un- 
precedented popularity. Two volumes of poetry have come from her pen, 
both full of strength and beauty. 

There is what may be called a lack of cosmopolitanism in the works of 
" George Eliot ; " she dwells on ground that is familiar to her, — the details 
of country life, with which she made acquaintance in her youth, and the oper- 
ations of the human heart and the delineation of character of which her studies 
and the associations of her later life made her an intelligent student. Her 
novels combine profound thought with vigorous, if not brilliant, imagination. 
The selection given below is from " Middlemarch." 



DOCTOR LYDGATE 

I. 

A GREAT historian,^ as he insisted on calling himself, who had 
the happiness to be dead a hundred and twenty years ago, and 
so to take his place among the colossi whose huge legs our 
living pettiness is observed to walk under, glories in his copious 
remarks and digressions as the least imitable part of his work, 
and especially in those initial chapters to the successive books 
of his history, where he seems to bring his arm-chair to the 
proscenium, and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine 
English. But Fielding lived when the days were longer (for 
time, like money, is measured by our needs), when summer 
afternoons were spacious, and the clock ticked slowly in the 
winter evenings. We belated historians must not linger after 
his example ; and if we did so it is probable that our chat 
would be thin and eager, as if delivered from a camp-stool in 
a parrot-house. I, at least, have so much to do in unraveling 
certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and inter- 
woven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on 

1 Henry Fielding, the novelist 



488 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range 
of relevancies called the universe. 

At present I have to make the new settler Lydgate better 
known to any one interested in him than he could possibly be 
even to those who had seen the most of him since his arrival in 
Middlemarch. For surely all must admit that a man may be 
puffed and belauded, envied, ridiculed, counted upon as a tool, 
and fallen in love with, or at least selected as a future husband, 
and yet remain virtually unknown, — known merely as a cluster 
of signs for his neighbors' false suppositions. There was a gen- 
eral impression, however, that Lydgate was not altogether a com- 
mon country doctor, and in Middlemarch at that time such an 
impression was significant of great things being expected from 
him. For everybody's family doctor was remarkably clever, and 
was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management 
and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases. The evi- 
dence of his cleverness was of the higher intuitive order, lying in 
his lady patients' immovable conviction, and was unassailable by 
any objection except that their intuitions were opposed by others 
equally strong. Nobody's imagination had gone so far as to con- 
jecture that Mr. Lydgate could know as much as Dr. Sprague and 
Dr. Minchin, the two physicians who alone could offer any hope 
when danger was extreme, and when the smallest hope was worth 
a guinea. Still, I repeat, there was a general impression that 
Lydgate was something rather more uncommon than any general 
practitioner in Middlemarch. And this was true. He was but 
seven-and-twenty, — an age at which many men are not quite 
common, at which they are hopeful of achievement, resolute in 
avoidance, thinking that Mammon shall never put a bit in their 
mouths and get astride their backs, but rather that Mammon, if 
they have anything to do with him, shall draw their chariot. 

He had been left an orphan when he was fresh from a pubHc 
school. His father, a military man, had made but little provision 
for three children ; and when the boy Tertius asked to have a 
medical education, it seemed easier to his guardians to grant his 
request by apprenticing him to a country practitioner than to 



GEORGE ELIOT 489 

make any objections on the score of family dignity. He was one 
of the rarer lads who early get a decided bent, and make up their 
minds that there is something particular in life which they would 
like to do for its own sake, and not because their fathers did it. 
Most of us who turn to any subject with love remember some 
morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach 
down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a 
new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices 
within, as the first traceable beginning of our love. Something 
of that sort happened to Lydgate. He was a quick fellow, and, 
when hot from play, would toss himself in a corner, and in five 
minutes be deep in any sort of book that he could lay his 
hands on : if it were Rasselas or Gulliver, so much the better ; 
but Bailey's Dictionary would do, or the Bible with the Apocry- 
pha in it. Something he must read when he was not riding the 
pony, or running and hunting, or listening to the talk of men. 
All this was true of him at ten years of age ; he had then read 
through "Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea," which was 
neither milk for babes, nor any chalky mixture meant to pass 
for milk ; and it had already occurred to him that books were 
stuff, and that life was stupid. His school-studies had not much 
modified that opinion ; for though he ^' did " his classics and 
mathematics, he was not preeminent in them. 

It was said of him that Lydgate could do anything he liked, 
but he had certainly not yet liked to do anything remarkable. 
He was a vigorous animal, with a ready understanding, but no 
spark had yet kindled in him an intellectual passion ; knowledge 
seemed to him a very superficial affair, easily mastered. Judging 
from the conversation of his elders, he had apparently got already 
more than was necessary for mature life. Probably this was not 
an exceptional result of expensive teaching at that period of short- 
waisted coats, and other fashions which have not yet recurred. 
But, one vacation, a wet day sent him to the small home library 
to hunt once more. for a book which might have some freshness 
for him : in vain ! unless, indeed, he took down a dusty row of 
volumes with gray paper backs and dingy labels, — the volumes 



490 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

of an old Cyclopedia which he had never disturbed. It would at 
least be a novelty to disturb them. They were on the highest 
shelf, and he stood on a chair to get them down. But he opened 
the volume he first took from the shelf: somehow, one is apt to 
read in a make-shift attitude, just where it might seem inconve- 
nient to do so. The page he opened on was under the head of 
Anatomy, and the first passage that drew his eyes was on the 
valves of the heart. He was not much acquainted with valves of 
any sort, but he knew that valvce were folding-doors, and through 
this crevice came a sudden light, startling him with his first vivid 
notion of finely adjusted mechanism in the human frame. K lib- 
eral education had, of course, left him free to read the indecent 
passages in the school classics, but beyond a general sense of 
secrecy and obscenity in connection with his internal structure, 
had left his imagination quite unbiased, so that for anything he 
knew, his brains lay in small bags at his temples, and he had no 
more thought of representing to himself how his blood circulated 
than how paper served instead of gold. But the moment of 
vocation had come, and before he got down from his chair, the 
world was made new to him by a presentiment of endless pro- 
cesses filling the vast spaces planked out of his sight by that 
wordy ignorance which he had supposed to be knowledge. From 
that hour Lydgate felt the growth of an intellectual passion. 

We are not afraid of telling over and over again how a man 
comes to fall in love with a woman and be wedded to her, or else 
be fatally parted from her. Is it due to excess of poetry or of 
stupidity that we are never weary of describing what King 
James called a woman's " makdom and her fairnesse," never 
weary of listening to the twanging of the old Troubadour strings, 
and are comparatively uninterested in that other kind of " mak- 
dom and fairnesse " which must be wooed with industrious 
thought and patient renunciation of small desires? In the story 
of this passion, too, the development varies : sometimes it is the 
glorious marriage, sometimes frustration and final parting. And 
not seldom the catastrophe is wound up with the other passion sung 
by the Troubadours. For in the multitude of middle-aged men 



GEORGE ELIOT 49I 

who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for 
them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is 
always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds 
and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be 
shapen after the average, and fit to be packed by the gross, is 
hardly ever told even in their consciousness ; for perhaps their 
ardor for generous, unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the 
ardor of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked 
like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. 
Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their grad- 
ual change ! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly : you 
and I may have sent some of our breath toward infecting them, 
when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclu- 
sions ; or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's 
glance. 

Lydgate did not mean to be one of those failures, and there 
was the better hope of him because his scientific interest soon 
took the form of a professional enthusiasm ; he had a youthful 
belief in his bread-winning work, not to be stifled by that initia- 
tion in make-shift called his 'prentice days ; and he carried to 
his studies in London, Edinburgh, and Paris the conviction that 
the medical profession as it might be was the finest in the world ; 
presenting the most perfect interchange between science and art ; 
offering the most direct alliance between intellectual conquest and 
the social good. Lydgate's nature demanded this combination : 
he was an emotional creature, with a flesh-and-blood sense of fel- 
lowship which withstood all the abstractions of special study. He 
cared not only for " cases," but for John and Elizabeth, especially 
Elizabeth. 

II. 

Does it seem incongruous to you that a Middlemarch surgeon 
should dream of himself as a discoverer? Most of us, indeed, 
know little of the great originators until they have been lifted up 
among the constellations, and already rule our fates. But that 
Herschel, for example, who " broke the barriers of the heavens," 



492 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

— did he not once play a provincial church organ, and give 
music-lessons to stumbling pianists ? Each of those Shining Ones 
had to walk on the earth among neighbors who perhaps thought 
much more of his gait and his garments than of anything which 
was to give him a title to everlasting fame ; each of them had his 
little local personal history sprinkled with small temptations and 
sordid cares, which made the retarding friction of his course 
toward final companionship with the immortals. Lydgate was 
not blind to the dangers of such friction, but he had plenty of 
confidence in his resolution to avoid it as far as possible ; being 
seven-and-twenty, he felt himself experienced. 

Perhaps that was a more cheerful time for observers and theo- 
rizers than the present; we are apt to think it the finest era of 
the world when America was beginning to be discovered, when a 
bold sailor, even if he were wrecked, might alight on a new king- 
dom; and about 1829 the dark territories of Pathology^ were a 
fine America for a spirited young adventurer. Lydgate was am- 
bitious above all to contribute toward enlarging the scientific, 
rational basis of his profession. The more he became interested 
in special questions of disease, such as the nature of fever or 
fevers, the more keenly he felt the need for that fundamental 
knowledge of structure which just at the beginning of the cen- 
tury had been illuminated by the brief and glorious career of 
Bichat, who died when he was only one-and-thirty, but, like an- 
other Alexander, left a realm large enough for many heirs. 
That great Frenchman first carried out the conception that living 
bodies, fundamentally considered, are not associations of organs 
which can be understood by studying them first apart, and then, 
as it were, federally, but must be regarded as consisting of cer- 
tain primary webs or tissues, out of which the various organs — 
brain, heart, lungs, and so on — are compacted, as the various 
accommodations of a house are built up in various proportions 
of wood, iron, stone, brick, zinc, and the rest, each material 



1 the science which has for its object the knowledge of disease {Gr. pathos, 
suffering, disease) 



GEORGE ELIOT 493 

having its peculiar composition and proportions. No man, one 
sees, can understand and estimate the entire structure or its 
parts, what are its frailties ^ and what its repairs, without knowing 
the nature of the materials. And the conception wrought out 
by Bichat, with his detailed study of the different tissues, acted 
necessarily on medical questions as the turning of gaslight would 
act on a dim, oil-lit street, showing new connections and hither- 
to hidden facts of structure which must be taken into account 
in considering the symptoms of maladies and the action of 
medicaments. 

But results which depend on human conscience and intelli- 
gence work slowly, and now most medical practice was still 
strutting or shambling along the old paths, and there was still 
scientific work to be done which might have seemed to be a 
direct sequence of Bichat's. This great seer did not go beyond 
the consideration of the tissues as ultimate facts in the living 
organism, marking the limit of anatomical analysis; but it was 
open to another mind to say. Have not" these structures some 
common basis from which they have ail started, as your sarcenet, 
gauze, net, satin, and velvet from the raw cocoon? Here would 
be another light, as of oxyhydrogen, showing the very grain of 
things, and revising all former explanations. Of this sequence 
to Bichat's work, already vibrating along many currents of the 
European mind, Lydgate was enamored ; he longed to demon- 
strate the more intimate relations of living structure, and help to 
define men's thought more accurately after the true order. The 
work had not yet been done, but only prepared for those who 
knew how to use the preparation. What was the primitive tissue ? 
In that way Lydgate put the question, — not quite in the way 
required by the awaiting answer ; but such missing of the right 
word befalls many seekers. And he counted on quiet intervals 
to be watchfully seized for taking up the threads of investigation, 
— on many hints to be won from diligent application, not only 
of the scalpel,^ but of the microscope, which research had begun 

1 weaknesses (from 'LdX. fragilitas , through O. Yx.frailete) 

2 from Lat. scalpellum^ a little knife 



494 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

to use again with new enthusiasm of rehance. Such was Lyd- 
gate's plan of his future : to do good small work for Middlemarch, 
and great work for the world. 

He was certainly a happy fellow at this time ; to be seven-and- 
twenty, without any fixed vices, with a generous resolution that 
his action should be beneficent, and with ideas in his brain that 
made life interesting, he was at a starting-point which makes 
many a man's career a fine subject for betting, if there were any 
gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the 
complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the 
possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the ni- 
ceties of inward balance, by which a man swims and makes his 
point, or else is carried headlong. The risk would remain, even 
with close knowledge of Lydgate's character ; for character, too, 
is a process and an unfolding. The man was still in the making, 
as much as the Middlemarch doctor and immortal discoverer, 
and there were both virtues and faults capable of shrinking or 
expanding. The faults will not, I hope, be a reason for the with- 
drawal of your interest in him. Among our valued friends is 
there not some one or other who is a little too self-confident and 
disdainful, whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with com- 
monness, who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with 
native prejudices, or whose better energies are liable to lapse 
down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solici- 
tations ? All these things might be alleged against Lydgate ; but 
then they are the periphrases^ of a polite preacher, who talks of 
Adam, and would not like to mention anything painful to the 
pew-renters. The particular . faults from which these delicate 
generalities are distilled have distinguishable physiognomies, dic- 
tion, accent, and grimaces ; filling up parts in very various 
dramas. Our vanities differ as our noses do ; all conceit is not 
the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiae ^ 
of mental make in which one of us differs from another. 



1 wordinesses, circumlocutions 

2 smallest details (from Lat. mmttere, to lessen) 



GEORGE ELIOT 495 

Lydgate's coiiceit was of the arrogant sort, never simpering, 
never impertinent, but massive in its claims, and benevolently 
contemptuous. He would do a great deal for noodles, being 
sorry for them, and feeling quite sure that they could have no 
power over him ; he had thought of joining the Saint Simonians ^ 
when he was in Paris, in order to turn them against some of their 
own doctrines. All his faults were marked by kindred traits, and 
were those of a man who had a fine baritone, whose clothes hung 
well upon him, and who even in his ordinary gestures had an air 
of inbred distinction. Where, then, lay the spots of common- 
ness ? says a young lady enamored of that careless grace. How 
could there be any commonness in a man so well bred, so am- 
bitious of social distinction, so generous and unusual in his views 
of social duty ? As easily as there may be stupidity in a man of 
genius if you take him unawares on the wrong subject, or as 
many a man who has the best will to advance the social millen- 
nium might be ill inspired in imagining its lighter pleasures, — 
unable to go beyond Offenbach's music, or the brilliant punning 
in the last burlesque. Lydgate's spots of commonness lay in the 
complexion of his prejudices, which, in spite of noble intention 
and sympathy, were half of them such as are found in ordinary 
men of the world : that distinction of mind which belonged to 
his intellectual ardor did not penetrate his feeling and judgment 
about furniture, or women, or the desirability of its being known 
(without his telling) that he was better born than other country 
surgeons. He did not mean to think of furniture at present ; 
but whenever he did so, it was to be feared that neither biology ^ 
nor schemes of reform would lift him above the vulgarity of feel- 
ing that there would be an incompatibility in his furniture not 
being of the best. 



1 followers of St.-Simon (1760-1825) the French socialist 

2 the science of life and its forces 



496 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

AMERICAN NOVELISTS 

COOPER - HAWTHORNE 

IRVING, Cooper, and Hawthorne have long been the 
classic names of American fiction, and no fourth has 
been added to their number in the quarter of a century 
since Hawthorne's death. To the question, why the best 
American novels belong to this earlier time, no very satis- 
factory answer has been given. If we except Mrs. Stowe's 
** Uncle Tom's Cabin " and the weird tales of Poe, it is 
perhaps equally remarkable that what remains of notable 
American fiction has made its appearance wnthin the last 
decade. 

Of stories for the young, the best are Louisa M. Alcott's 
** Little Women " and " Little Men," Frances Hodgson 
Burnett's " Little Lord Fauntleroy," and Thomas B. Al- 
drich's " Story of a Bad Boy." George W. Cable has 
published several striking novels of Louisiana character. 
Bret Harte has written stories of life in the Far West 
which, like the novels of Henry James, Jr., have enjoyed 
greater popularity in England than at home. The several 
romances of Francis M. Crawford are highly original and 
imaginative. 

William D. Howells, the most popular of our recent 
writers of fiction, seems imbued with the spirit of social 
reform ; though the ends he aims at have not taken definite 
shape in his work, nor perhaps in his thought. It is 
therefore regrettable that in his several essays in criticism 
Howells should have set up, for the guidance of the novel- 
writer, an ethical standard of which he himself has fallen 
short, and especially that he should have thought it neces- 
sary to decry the far more influential work of such masters 
as Dickens and Thackeray. 



COOPER 



497 



COOPER 



1 789- 1 85 1 



James Fenimore Cooper the novelist was born in New Jersey in 1789, 
and died at Cooperstown, New York, in 1851. The best of his works are 
"The Spy," " The Prairie," "The Pilot," and "The Last of the Mohicans." 
His fame is ownng mainly to the excellence of his delineation of Indian life 




cA /e^i^r^/f^T^-e- C^OO/ 



'X£^ 



and of maritime adventure. In this no writer has yet excelled him. His 
style is dramatic, and pure and scholarly in construction. 

No American writer has received more cordial treatment at the hands 
of foreign critics. Victor Hugo went to the extreme of pronouncing him a 
greater novelist than Scott ; the London AthencEiun called him " the most 
original writer that America has yet produced ; " and the Revue de Paris 
said : " Who is there writing English among our contemporaries, if not of 
him, of whom it can be said that he has a genius of the first order ? " These 
panegyrics would not be accepted by literary authorities of the present day, 

32 



498 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

when English literature is far stronger and richer than at their date. But 
Cooper's title to a high place among our writers is undisputed. In the 
assignment of his rank he should have the benefit of the consideration that 
he was a pioneer in a specialty of authorship that before his time was hardly 
approached by American writers, and which for many years he occupied 
without a rival. Our selection is from " The Prairie," a story of Indian life. 



THE INDIAN ADOPTION 
I. 

A LOW, feeble, and hollow voice was heard rising on the ear, 
as if it rolled from the inmost cavities of the human chest, and 
gathered strength and energy as it issued into the air. A solemn 
stillness followed the sounds, and then the lips of the aged man 
were first seen to move. 

"The day of Le Balafre is near its end," were the first words 
that were distinctly audible. " He is like a buffalo on whom the 
hair will grow no longer. He will soon be ready to leave his 
lodge to go in search of another that is far from the villages of 
the Siouxes ; therefore what he has to say concerns not him, but 
those he leaves behind him. His words are like the fruit on the 
tree, ripe and fit to be given to chiefs. 

" Many snows have fallen since Le Balafre has been found on 
the war-path. His blood has been very hot, but it has had time 
to cool. The Wahcondah gives him dreams of war no longer ; 
he sees that it is better to live in peace. 

"My brothers, one foot is turned to the happy hunting-grounds, 
the other will soon follow ; and then an old chief will be seen 
looking for the prints of his father's moccasins, that he may make 
no mistake, but be sure to come before the Master of Life by the 
same path that so many good Indians have already traveled. But 
who will follow? Le Balafr^ has no son. His oldest has ridden 
too many Pawnee horses ; the bones of the youngest have been 
gnawed by Konza dogs. Le Balafre has come to look for a 
young arm on which he may lean, and to find a son, that when 



COOPER 499 

he is gone his lodge may not be empty. Tachechana, the skip- 
ping fawn of the Tetons, is too weak to prop a warrior who is 
old. She looks before her, and not backwards. Her mind is in 
the lodge of her husband." 

The enunciation of the veteran warrior had been calm, but dis- 
tinct and decided. His declaration was received in silence ; and 
though several of the chiefs who were in the counsels of Mahtoree 
turned their eyes on their leader, none presumed to oppose so 
aged and venerated a brave in a resolution that was strictly in 
conformity to the usages of the nation. The Teton himself was 
content to await the result with seeming composure, though the 
gleams of ferocity that played about his eye occasionally betrayed 
the nature of those feehngs with which he witnessed a procedure 
that was likely to rob him of that one of all his intended victims 
whom he most hated. 

In the mean time Le Balafre moved with a slow and painful 
step towards the captives. He stopped before the person of 
Hard- Heart, whose faultless form, unchanged eye, and lofty 
mien he contemplated with high satisfaction. Then, making a 
gesture of authority, he waited until his order had been obeyed, 
and the youth was released from the post and his bonds by the 
same blow of the knife. When the young warrior was led nearer 
to his dimmed and failing sight, the examination was renewed 
with strictness of scrutiny. 

'' It is good," the wary veteran murmured, when he found that 
all his skill in the requisites of a brave could detect no blemish ; 
"this is a leaping panther. Does my son speak with the tongue 
of a Teton?" 

The intelligence which lighted the eyes of the captive betrayed 
how well he understood the question ; but still he was far too 
haughty to communicate his ideas through the medium of a 
language that belonged to a hostile people. Some of the sur- 
rounding warriors explained to the old chief that the captive was 
a Pawnee- Loup. 

"My son opened his eyes on the 'waters of the wolves,' " said 
Le Balafre, in the language of that nation, " but he will shut them 



500 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

in the bend of the ' river with a troubled stream.' He was born 
a Pawnee, but he will die a Dahcotah. Look at me. I am a 
sycamore that once covered many with my shadow. The leaves 
are fallen, and the branches begin to drop. But a single sucker 
is springing from my roots ; it is a little vine, and it winds itself 
about a tree that is green. I have long looked for one fit to grow 
by my side. Now have I found him. Le Balafre is no longer 
without a son; his name will not be forgotten when he is gone. 
Men of the Tetons ! I take this youth into my lodge." 

No one was bold enough to dispute *a right that had so often 
been exercised by warriors far inferior to the present speaker; 
and the adoption was listened to in grave and respectful silence. 
Le Balafre took his intended son by the arm, and leading him 
into the very center of the circle, he stepped aside with an air of 
triumph in order that the spectators might approve of his choice. 
Mahtoree betrayed no evidence of his intentions, but rather 
seemed to await a moment better suited to the crafty policy 
of his character. The more experienced and sagacious chiefs 
distinctly foresaw the utter impossibility of two partisans so 
renowned, so hostile, and who had so long been rivals in fame, 
as their prisoner and their native leader, existing amicably in the 
same tribe. Still, the character of Le Balafre was so imposing, 
and the custom to which he had resorted so sacred, that none 
dared to lift a voice in opposition to the measure. They watched 
the result with increasing interest, but with a coldness of de- 
meanor that concealed the nature of their inquietude. From 
this state of embarrassment the tribe was relieved by the decision 
of the one most interested in the success of the aged chief's 
designs. 

IL 

During the whole of the foregoing scene, it would have been 
difficult to have ^ traced a single distinct emotion in the linea- 
ments of the captive. He had heard his release proclaimed, with 

^ would have . . . to have : Correct the form of expression. 



COOPER 501 

the same indifference as the order to bind him to the stake. But 
now that the moment had arrived when it became necessary to 
make his election,^ he spoke in a way to prove that the forti- 
tude which had brought him so distinguished a name had in no 
degree deserted him. 

" My father is very old, but he has not yet looked upon every- 
thing," said Hard-Heart, in a voice so clear as to be heard by all 
present. " He has never seen a buffalo change to a bat ; he will 
never see a Pawnee become a Sioux ! " 

There was a suddenness and yet a calmness in the manner of 
delivering this decision which assured most of the auditors that 
it was unalterable. The heart of Le Balafre, however, was yearn- 
ing towards the youth, and the fondness of age was not so readily 
repulsed. Reproving the burst of admiration and triumph to 
which the boldness of the declaration and the freshened hopes 
of revenge had given rise, by turning his gleaming eye around 
the band, the veteran again addressed his adopted child as if his 
purpose was not to be denied. 

'' It is well," he said ; " such are the words a brave should use, 
that the warriors may see his heart. The day has been when the 
voice of Le Balafre was loudest among the lodges of the Konzas. 
But the root of a white hair is wisdom. My child will show the 
Tetons that he is brave, by striking their enemies. Men of the 
Dahcotahs, this is my son ! " 

The Pawnee hesitated a moment, and then, stepping in front of 
the chief, he took his hard and wrinkled hand and laid it with 
reverence on his head, as if to acknowledge the extent of his obli- 
gation. Then recoiling a step, he raised his person to its great- 
est elevation, and looked upon the hostile band by whom he was 
environed with an air of loftiness and disdain, as he spoke aloud 
in the language of the Siouxes, — 

" Hard-Heart has looked at himself within and without. He 
has thought of all he has done in the hunts and in the wars. 
Everywhere he is the same. There is no change ; he is in all 

1 choice, from Lat. eJigere, to choose out 



502 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

things a Pawnee. He has struck so many Tetons that he could 
never eat in their lodges. His arrows would fly backwards ; the 
point of his lance would be on the wrong end ; their friends 
would weep at every whoop he gave ; their enemies would laugh. 
Do the Tetons know a Loup? Let them look at him again. 
His head is painted, his arm is flesh, his heart is rock. When 
the Tetons see the sun come from the Rocky Mountains and 
move toward the land of the Pale-faces, the mind of Hard-Heart 
will soften and his spirit will become Sioux. Until that day he 
will live and die a Pawnee." 

A yell of delight, in which admiration and ferocity were 
strangely mingled, interrupted the speaker, and but too clearly 
announced the character of his fate. The captive waited a 
moment for the commotion to subside, and then, turning again to 
Le Balafr^, he continued in tones conciliating and kind, as if 
he felt the propriety of softening his refusal in a manner not to 
wound the pride of one willing to be his benefactor. 

" Let my father lean heavier on the fawn of the Dahcotahs," 
he said ; " she is weak now, but as her lodge fills with young she 
will be stronger. See ! " he added, directing the eyes of the other 
to the earnest countenance of the attentive trapper ; '' Hard- 
Heart is not without a gray-beard to show him the path to the 
blessed prairies. If he ever has another father, it shall be that 
just warrior." 

Le Balafr^ turned away in disappointment from the youth, and 
approached the stranger who had thus anticipated his design. 



HAIVTHORNE 



503 



HAWTHORNE 

I 804- I 864 

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem in 1804, and died in 1864. 
He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825, being a classmate of Longfellow. 
He began to write at an early age, but his first efforts received little encour- 
agement. Modest, retiring, and sensitive, he patiently awaited the recogni- 
tion of his claims to literary honors. During the early years of his manhood 




he filled offices in the custom-houses of Boston and Salem ; but he gave his 
thought and heart to literary labors. His first book, "Twice-Told Tales," 
found few readers ; ten years after its publication his name would hardly 
have found a place in a catalogue of American writers. From the publica- 
tion of " The Scarlet Letter," however, his reputation steadily and rapidly 
increased. In 1853 he was appointed consul to Liverpool by his friend and 
classmate, President Pierce, and held that office several years. During his 
residence in England he gathered material for " Our Old Home," — a record 
of travel and observation. At the expiration of his term of office he pro- 
ceeded to Italy, where he lived for some time, and, as the fruit of this 
sojourn, gave to the world " The Marble Faun." During the last years 
of his life the condition of his health obliged him to abstain from active 



504 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

literary work; but he left behind him several chapters of "The Dolliver 
Romance " which warrant the opinion that the completed work would have 
been his masterpiece. Several years after his death there was discovered 
among his papers the manuscript of " Septimius Felton," a weird and char- 
acteristic story. Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, while on a 
journey with Ex-President Pierce. 

Hawthorne must be esteemed one of the foremost American writers 
of prose ; and it would not be easy to select a name that is more closely and 
honorably associated with the marriage of fine thoughts to fine language. 
His psychological insight was great, and gave a distinguishing and inimitable 
character to all his writings. The dark side of things especially attracted 
him ; he dwelt broodingly and with the devotion of an enthusiast upon ab- 
normal manifestations of human nature, and delighted in delineating the 
intricacies of human passion. His style is remarkable for its purity and 
gracefulness. 



MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE 

We stand now on the river's brink. It may well be called the 
Concord, — the river of peace and quietness, — for it is certainly 
the most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered im- 
perceptibly towards its eternity, the sea. Positively, I had lived 
three weeks beside it, before it grew quite clear to my perception 
which way the current flowed. From the incurable indolence of 
its nature, the stream is happily incapable of becoming the slave 
of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a wild, free moun- 
tain torrent. While all things else are compelled to subserve 
some useful purpose, it idles its sluggish life away in lazy liberty, 
without turning a solitary spindle, or affording even water-power 
enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. 

The torpor of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly 
shore, nor so much as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any 
part of its course. It slumbers between broad prairies, kissing 
the long meadow-grass, and bathes the overhanging boughs of 
elder-bushes and willows, or the roots of elm and ash trees, and 
clumps of maples. Flags and rushes grow along its plashy shore ; 
the yellow water-lily spreads its broad, flat leaves on the margin ; 



HAIVTHORNE 505 

and the fragrant white pond-Hly abounds, generally selecting a 
position just so far from the river's bank that it cannot be grasped, 
save at the hazard of plunging in. It is a marvel whence this 
perfect flower derives its loveliness and perfume, springing, as it 
does, from the black mud over which the river sleeps, and where 
lurk the sHmy eel, and speckled frog, and the mud-turtle, whom 
continual washing can not cleanse. It is the same black mud out 
of which the yellow lily sucks its rank life and noisome odor. 
Thus we see, too, in the world, that some persons assimilate only 
what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstances which 
supply good and beautiful results — the fragrance of celestial 
flowers — to the daily life of others. 

The Old Manse ! — we had almost forgotten it, but will re- 
turn thither through the orchard. This was set out by the last 
clergyman, in the decline of his life, when the neighbors laughed 
at the hoary-headed man for planting trees from which he could 
have no prospect of gathering fruit. Even had that been the 
case, there was only so much the better motive for planting them, 
in the pure and unselfish hope of benefiting his successors, — an 
end so seldom achieved by more ambitious efforts. But the old 
minister, before reaching his patriarchal age of ninety, ate the 
apples from this orchard during many years, and added silver 
and gold to his annual stipend by disposing of the superfluity. 

It is pleasant to think of him walking among the trees in the 
quiet afternoons of early autumn, and picking up here and there 
a windfall, while he observes how heavily the branches are 
weighed down, and computes the number of empty flour- barrels 
that will be filled by their burden. He loved each tree, doubt- 
less, as if it had been his own child. An orchard has a relation 
to mankind, and readily connects itself with matters of the heart. 
The trees possess a domestic character ; they have lost the wild 
nature of their forest kindred, and have grown humanized by 
receiving the care of man, as well as by contributing to his 
wants. 

I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world 
as that of finding myself, with only the two or three mouths 



506 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

which it was my privilege to feed, the sole inheritor of the old 
clergyman's wealth of fruits. Throughout the summer there were 
cherries and currants ; and then came Autumn, with his immense 
burden of apples, dropping them continually from his overladen 
shoulders as he trudged along. In the stillest afternoon, if I 
listened, the thump of a great apple was audible, falling without 
a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of perfect ripeness. 
And, besides, there were pear-trees, that flung down bushels upon 
bushels of heavy pears ; and peach-trees, which in a good year 
tormented me with peaches, neither to be eaten nor kept, nor, 
without labor and perplexity, to be given away. 

The idea of an infinite generosity and inexhaustible bounty, on 
the part of our mother Nature, was well worth obtaining through 
such cares as these. That feehng can be enjoyed in perfection, 
not only by the natives of summer islands, where the bread-fruit, 
the cocoa, the palm, and the orange grow spontaneously, and 
hold forth the ever-ready meal, but, likewise, almost as well, by 
a man long habituated to city life, who plunges into such a soli- 
tude as that of the Old Manse, where he plucks the fruit of trees 
that he did not plant, and which, therefore, to my heterodox 
taste, bear the closer resemblance to those that grew in Eden. 

Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to culti- 
vate a moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen 
vegetables as is never found in those of the market-gardener. 
Childless men, if they would know 'something of the bliss of 
paternity, should plant a seed, — be it squash, bean, Indian corn, 
or perhaps a mere flower, or worthless weed, — should plant it 
with their own hands, and nurse it, from infancy to maturity, 
altogether by their own care. If there be not too many of them, 
each individual plant becomes an object of separate interest. 

My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of pre- 
cisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was 
all that it required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen 
times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable 
progeny, with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who 
had never taken part in the process of creation. 



THE SONNET 



SO? 



THE SONNET 



THE sonnet (Italian soiietto, diminutive of suono, ** a 
sound ") is a unique and specific poetic form. It 
always consists of fourteen lines of ten syllables each, and 
is arranged in rhymes. The order and number of these 
rhymes vary, giving rise to several types of sonnet; but 
these, in their main outlines, are reducible to two, — 

1. The Elizabethan, used by Shakespeare, Drayton, and 
Daniel ; and 

2. The Contemporary, used by Milton, and, with little 
modification, by Wordsworth, Rossetti, Longfellow, and 
the sonneteers of the present day. 

In the first of these types, lines i to 12 contain six 
rhymes (i with 3, 2 with 4, 5 with 7, 6 with 8, 9 with 11, 
and 10 with 12), and the last two lines are a rhymed 
couplet. (See Shakespeare's Sonnets, page 31). 

In the second, or contemporary, type, lines i, 4, 5, 8, 
are rhymed on one sound; lines 2, 3, 6, 7, on another; 
while the last six lines admit of variation in arrangement. 

A good idea of the two principal types of sonnet rhymes 
may be got from the following comparison : — 

Contemporary 

[Keats^s Homer, p. 509) 
Line 

I 
2 

3 

4 
5 







Elizabethan 




{Shakespeare^ s Sonnet LXV,, 


A 32) 


Line 




I . . . . sea . . 


a 


2 . 




power . . 


b 


3 






. plea . . 


a 


4 






flower . . 


b 


5 






. out . . 


c 


6 






. days . . 


d 


7 






. stout . . 


c 


8 






decays . . 


d 


9 






. alack . . 


e 


10 






. hid . . 


f 


II 






. back . . 


e 


12 






forbid . . 


f 


13 






. night . , 


S 


14 






bright . . 


g 



. . gold . 


. . a 


. . seen . 


. . b 


. . been . 


. . b 


. .hold . 


. a 


. . told . 


. a 


demesne . 


. b 


. serene . 


. b 


. . bold . 


. a 


skies . 


. c 


. . ken . 


. d 


. . eyes . . 


. c 


. . men . 


. d 


surmise . 


. c 


. Darien . 


. d 



508 CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 

In the accepted sonnet of to-day the rhyme-sounds of 
the first eight hnes (or octave, as it is called) are always 
arranged as in the second column above. The rhymes in 
the last six lines (or sestet) may be on more than two 
sounds, and may be arranged in a variety of ways. 

The sonnet must be complete in itself; it must develop 
one thought or one emotion only; the continuity of thought 
must be unbroken ; and the close of the sonnet should be 
more impressive than the opening. 



A GROUP OF BRITISH SONNETS 

I. On Milton^ 

Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this hour ; 

England hath need of thee : she is a fen 

Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 

Have forfeited their ancient English dower 

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; 

O, raise us up, return to us again ! 

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart : 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free ; 

So didst thou travel on life's common way 

In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 

The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 

William Wordsworth 



^ To which of the types of sonnet does this poem belong? In what 
respect are its rhymes different from those of both of the models shown on 
the previous page } 



A GROUP OF BRITISH SONNETS 509 

II. Night and Death 

Mysterious night ! when our first parent knew 

Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, 

Did he not tremble for this lovely frame. 

This glorious canopy of hght and blue ? ^ 

Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 

Hesperus,^ with the host of heaven, came, 

And lo ! creation widened in man's view ! 

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 

Within thy beams, O sun ! or who could find,^ 

Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed. 

That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ? 

Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife ? 

If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life ? 

Joseph Blanco White ^ 



III. On First Looking into "Chapman's Homer" 

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold 

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; 

Round many western islands have I been 

Which bards in fealty to Apollo ^ hold. 

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne : ^ 

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : 

— Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 

When a new planet swims into his ken ; 



1 the evening star '^ detect, imagine 

'^ This sonnet, pronounced by Coleridge "the finest in our language," is 

remarkable from the fact that to White, who was born and educated in 

Spain, our language was acquired rather than native. 

* the fabled protector of the Muses ^ exclusive domain 



510 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Or like stout Cortez/ when with eagle eyes 

He stared at the Pacific, and all his men 

Looked at each other with a wild surmise, 

Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

John Keats 



IV. On the Castle of Chillon 

Eternal spirit of the chainless mind ! 

Brightest in dungeons. Liberty, thou art — 

For there thy habitation is the heart — 

The heart which love of thee alone can bind ; 

And when thy sons to fetters are consigned. 

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom. 

Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 

And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 

Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place. 

And thy sad floor an altar, for 't was trod. 

Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod. 

By Bonnivard ^ ! May none those marks efface ! 

For they appeal from tyranny to God. 



Byron 



V. When we are all asleep 

When He returns, and finds all sleeping here, — 
Some old, some young, some fair, and some not fair, — 
Will He stoop down and whisper in each ear, 
"Awaken ! " or, for pity's sake, forbear, 

1 mistaken by the poet for Balboa 

2 Fran9ois Bonnivard, a patriot who was confined in the Castle of Chillon, 
on Lake Geneva, in the early part of the sixteenth century, by the tyrannical 
Duke of Savoy. 



A GROUP OF BRITISH SONNETS 511 

Saying, " How shall I meet their frozen stare 

Of wonder, and their eyes so woe-begone ? 

How shall I comfort them in their despair 

If they cry out, ' Too late ! let us sleep on ' ? " 

Perchance He will not wake us up, but when 

He sees us look so happy in our rest. 

Will murmur, " Poor dead women and dead men ! 

Dire was their doom, and weary was their quest. 

Wherefore awake them into life again? 

Let them sleep on untroubled — it is best." 

Robert Buchanan 



VI. The GR.A.SSHOPPER and the Cricket 

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, 

Catching your heart up at the feel ^ of June, 

Sole voice that 's heard amidst the lazy noon. 

When e'en the bees lag at the summoning brass ; ^ 

And you, warm little housekeeper,^ who class 

With those who think the candles come too soon, 

Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune 

Nick the glad silent moments as they pass ; 

O, sweet and tiny cousins, that belong 

One to the fields, the other to the hearth,^ 

Both have your sunshine ; both, though small, are strong 

At your clear hearts ; and both were sent on earth 

To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song. 

In doors and out, summer and winter, — Mirth. 

Leigh Hunt 



1 feel, sensation, consciousness 

2 bell, noonday gong; hence, midday 

3 warm little housekeeper ; i. e. the cricket, — hence, "housekeeper" here 
means " you who keep indoors " 

* V/hat pronunciation does the rhyme require ? 



512 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

VI I. Ialmortality 

If I had lived ere seer or priest unveiled 

A life to come, methinks that, knowing thee, 

I should have guessed thine immortality ; 

For Nature, giving instincts, never failed 

To give the ends they point to. Never quailed 

The swallow, through air-wilds, o'er tracts of sea. 

To chase the summer ; seeds that prisoned be 

Dream of and find the daylight. Unassailed 

By doubt, impelled by yearnings for the main, 

The creature river-born doth there emerge ; 

So thou, with thoughts and longings which our earth 

Can never compass in its narrow verge,^ 

Shalt the fit region of thy spirit gain. 

And death fulfil the promptings of thy birth. 

Westland Marston 



VIII. How DO I LOVE Thee? 

How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of being and ideal grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for right ; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

1 borders, bounds 



A GROUP OF BRITISH SONNETS 513 



IX. " Retro Me, Sathana 



! "1 



Get thee behind me ! Even as, heavy-curled, 
Stooping against the wind, a charioteer 
Is snatched from out his chariot by the hair, 
So shall Time be ; and as the void car, hurled 
Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world : 
Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air. 
It shall be sought and not found anywhere. 
Get thee behind me, Satan ! Oft unfurled, 
Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath 
Much mightiness of men to win thee praise. 
Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways. 
Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path, 
Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath 
For certain years, for certain months and days. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 



X. The Buoy-Bell 

How like the leper, with his own sad cry 
Enforcing his own solitude, it tolls ! 
That lonely bell set in the rushing shoals, 
To warn us from the place of jeopardy ! 
O friend of man ! sore vexed by Ocean's power. 
The changing tides wash o'er thee day by day ; 
Thy trembling mouth is filled with bitter spray. 
Yet still thou ringest on from hour to hour ; 
High is thy mission, though thy lot is wild — 
To be in danger's realm a guardian sound : 
In seamen's dreams a pleasant part to bear, 
And earn their blessing as the year goes round ; 
And strike the key-note of each grateful prayer, 
Breathed in their distant homes by wife or child. 

Charles Tennyson-Turner 

1 Sain^ Ltcke iv. 8 
33 



514 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

XL The First Kiss 

[f only in dreams may man be fully blest, 
Is heaven a dream ? Is she I claspt a dream ? — 
Or stood she here even now where dew-drops gleam 
And miles of furze shine golden down the West ? 
I seem to clasp her still — still on my breast 
Her bosom beats — I see the blue eyes beam : — 
I think she kissed these lips, for now they seem 
Scarce mine : so hallowed of the lips they pressed. 
Yon thicket's breath — can that be eglantine ? 
Those birds — can they be morning's choristers ? 
Can this be Earth ? Can these be banks of furze ? 
Like burning bushes fired of God they shine ! 
I seem to know them, though this body of mine 
Passed into spirit at the touch of hers ! 



Theodore Watts 



XI L OZYMANDIAS ^ 

I MET a traveler from an antique land 
Who said : Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command, 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things. 
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed : 
And on the pedestal these words appear : 
" My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings : 
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair ! " 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 

1 The rhymes of this famous poem are not, as will be seen, arranged upon 
the plan of either of the principal types of sonnet. 



A GROUP OF BRITISH SONNETS 515 

XIII. "Timor Mortis conturbat Me " ^ 

Could I have sung one Song that should survive 
The singer's voice, and in my country's heart 
Find loving echo — evermore a part 
Of all her sweetest memories ; could I give 
One great Thought to the people, that should prove 
The spring of noble action in their hour 
Of darkness, or control their headlong power 
With the firm reins of justice and of love ; 
Could I have traced one Form that should express 
The sacred mystery that underlies 
All beauty, and through man's enraptured eyes 
Teach him how beautiful is holiness, — 
I had not feared thee. But to yield my breath, 
Life's purpose unfulfilled ! — This is thy sting, O Death ! 

Sir Noel Paton 



XIV. The Dead 

The dead abide with us ! Though stark and cold 

Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still. 

They have forged our chains of being for good or ill ; 

And their invisible hands these hands yet hold. 

Our perishable bodies are the mold 

In which their strong, imperishable will, — 

Mortality's deep yearning to fulfill — 

Hath grown incorporate through dim time untold. 

Vibrations infinite of life in death. 

As a star's traveling light survives its star ! 

So may we hold our lives, that when we are 

The fate of those who then will draw this breath. 

They shall not drag us to their judgment- bar. 

And curse the heritage which we bequeath. 

Mathilde Blind 

1 Lat. " The fear of death troubleth me." 



5l6 CATH CARTS LITERARY READER 

XV. Substance and Shadow 

They do but grope in learning's pedant round 
Who on the phantasies of sense bestow 
An idol substance, bidding us bow low 
Before those shades of being which are found, 
Stirring or still, on man's brief trial-ground ; 
As if such shapes and modes, which come and go, 
Had aught of truth or life in their poor show. 
To sway or judge, and skill to sain ^ or wound. 
Son of immortal seed, high-destined Man ! 
Know thy dread gift, — a creature, yet a cause : 
Each mind is its own center, and it draws 
Home to itself, and molds in its thought's span. 
All outward things, the vassals of its will. 
Aided by Heaven, by earth unthwarted still. 

John Henry Newman 



XVI. Don Quixote 

Behind thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack,^ 

Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro. 

Thy long spear leveled at the unseen foe, 

And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back. 

Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack ! 

To make wiseacredom,^ both high and low, 

Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go) 

Dispatch its Dogberrys ^ upon thy track : 

Alas ! poor Knight ! Alas ! poor soul possest ! 

Yet would to-day, when Courtesy grows chill, 

1 sanctify, bless, protect 

2 overworked horse 

3 the whole body of would-be wise people 

4 Dogberry is the stupid constable of Shakespeare's " Much Ado About 
Nothing " 



A GROUP OF BRITISH SONNETS 517 

And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest, 
Some fire of thine might burn within us still ! 
Ah ! would but one might lay his lance in rest, 
And charge in earnest — were it but a mill. 

Austin Dobson 



XVII. Sorrow 



Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 
God's messenger sent down to thee ; do thou 
With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow ; 
And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave 
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave ; 
Then lay before him all thou hast ; allow 
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow. 
Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave 
Of mortal tumult to obliterate 
The soul's marmoreal ^ calmness : Grief should be. 
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate ; 
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ; 
Strong to consume small troubles ; to commend 
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. 

Aubrey de Vere 



XVIII. Guns of Peace 

{Sunday night, March 30, 1856'^) 

Ghosts of dead soldiers in the battle slain. 

Ghosts of dead heroes dying nobler far 

In the long patience of inglorious war. 

Of famine, cold, heat, pestilence, and pain, — 

All ye whose loss makes up our vigorous gain, — 

1 from Lat. marmor, marble 2 j^e close of the Crimean war 



5l8 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER 

This quiet nigtit, as sounds the cannon's tongue, 
Do ye look down the trembling stars among, 
Viewing our peace and war with like disdain ? 
Or, wiser grown since reaching those new spheres, 
Smile ye on those poor bones ye sowed as seed 
For this our harvest, nor regret the deed? 
Yet lift one cry with us to Heavenly ears — 
" Strike with Thy bolt the next red flag unfurled. 
And make all wars to cease throughout the world ! " 

Dinah Maria Craik (Miss Mulock) 



XIX. On His Blindness 

When I consider how my light is spent 

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide. 

And that one talent, which is death to hide. 

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 

My true account,^ lest he returning chide, — 

Doth God exact day-labor, light denied? 

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 

That murmur, soon replies : God doth not need 

Either man's work, or his own gifts ; who best 

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best ; his state 

Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed 

And post o'er land and ocean without rest : 

They also serve who only stand and wait.^ 

John Milton 



1 Ajtd that one talent . . . true account, an allusion to Saint Matthew 
XXV. 14-30 

2 How do the rhymes of the sestet differ from those used by Keats and 
by Wordsworth ? 



SOME AMERICAN SONNETS 519 

SOME AMERICAN SONNETS 

I. The Street^ 

They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, 
Dim ghosts of men that hover to and fro, 
Hugging their bodies round them, like thin shrouds 
Wherein their souls were buried long ago : 
They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love, 
They cast their hope of human-kind away. 
With heaven's clear messages they madly strove. 
And conquered, — and their spirits turned to clay. 
Lo ! how they wander round the world, their grave, 
Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed. 
Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, 
''We, only, truly live, but ye are dead." 
Alas ! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace 
A dead soul's epitaph in every face ! 

James Russell Lowell 



II. Return 



Here on the steps I sit, as long ago. 

Some little change there seems : the vine its leaves 

O'erhead flings broader, thicker darkness weaves. 

And heavier branches sweep the path below ; 

While from its fragrant shade I watch the slow 

Long shadows of the elms creep o'er the grass. 

And hear the tinkling cow-bells as they pass, 

Like one who dreams, but neither joys nor grieves, — 

And still the same, but yet the same no more. 

As when a girl I looked out through the years. 

The rhymes of Lowell's sonnets conform to the Elizabethan model. 



520 CATHCARrS LITERARY READER 

Some hopes I see fulfilled, and ah ! some fears, 

Since last I sat in this familiar door. 

I would not be a girl again, and yet 

With sudden tears my folded hands are wet. 

LiLLAH Cabot Perry 



III. Mazzini 



That he is dead the sons of kings are glad ; 
And in their beds the tyrants sounder sleep. 
Now he is dead his martyrdom will reap 
Late harvest of the palms he should have had 
In Hfe. Too late the tardy lands are sad. 
His unclaimed crown in secret they will keep 
For ages, while in chains they vainly weep. 
And vainly grope to find the roads he bade 
Them take. O glorious soul, there is no dearth 
Of worlds ! There must be many better worth 
Thy presence and thy leadership than this. 
No doubt on some great sun to-day thy birth 
Is for a race the dawn of Freedom's bliss. 
Which but for thee it might for ages miss. 

Helen Hunt Jackson 



IV. Orpheus 



Each Orpheus ^ must unto the depths descend, 
For only thus the poet can be wise ; 
Must make the sad Persephone^ his friend. 
And buried love to second life arise ; 



1 Italian patriot and political philosopher (1805- 1872) 

2 What is the type of sonnet ? 

2 poet and musician of ancient mythology; hence, " Each poet — " 
* The goddess Persephone (Lat. Proserpina) was, according to the fable, 
doomed to pass half of each year in the regions of the dead. 



SOME AMERICAhl SONNETS 52 1 

Again his love must lose through too much love, 

Must lose his life by living life too true — 

For what he sought below is passed above, 

Already done is all that he would do ; 

Must tune all being with his single lyre, 

Must melt all rocks free from their primal pain. 

Must search all Nature with his one soul's fire, 

Must bind anew all forms in heavenly chain. 

If he already sees what he must do. 

Well may he shade his eyes from the far-shining view. 

Margaret Fuller 



V. " Full Many Noble Friends " 

Full many noble friends my soul hath known. 

Women and men, who in my memory 

Have sown such beauty as can never die ; 

And many times, when I seem all alone. 

Within my heart, I call up one by one 

The joys I shared with them, the unlaced hours 

Of laughing thoughts, that came and went like flowers, 

Or higher argument, Apollo's own ; 

Those listening eyes that gave nobility 

To humblest verses writ and read for love, 

Those burning words of high democracy. 

Those doubts that through the vague abyss would rove 

And lean o'er chasms that took away the breath — 

When I forget them, may it be in death ! 

James Russell Lowell 



VI. Night 

Am I not all alone ? The world is still 
In passionless slumber ; not a tree but feels 
The far-pervading hush, and softer steals 
The misty river by. Yon broad bare hill 



522 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Looks coldly up to heaven, and all the stars 
Seem eyes deep fixed m silence, as if bound 
By some unearthly spell, — no other sound 
But the owl's unfrequent moan. Their airy cars 
The winds have stationed on the mountain peaks. 
Am I not all alone ? A spirit speaks 
From the abyss of night : " Not all alone : 
Nature is round thee with her banded powers. 
And ancient genius ^ haunts thee in these hours ; 
Mind and its kingdom now are all thine own." 

James Gates Percival 



VII. Holy Land 



This is the earth He walked on ; not alone 
That Asian country keeps the sacred stain ; 
'T is not alone the far Judsean plain, 
Mountain and river ! Lo, the sun that shone 
On him shines now on us ; when day is gone, 
The moon of Galilee comes forth again 
And lights our path as his ; an endless chain 
Of years and sorrows makes the round world one. 
The air we breathe, he breathed, — the very air 
That took the mold and music of his high 
And godlike speech. Since then shall mortal dare 
With base thought front the ever- sacred sky. 
Soil with foul deed the ground whereon he laid 
In holy death his pale, immortal head? 

Richard Watson Gilder 



VIII. At Last 



In youth, when blood was warm and fancy high, 
I mocked at Death. How many a quaint conceit 

1 ancient genius, the primeval guardian spirit 



SOME AMERICAN SONNETS 



523 



I wove about his veiled head and feet, 
Vaunting aloud, " Why need we dread to die ? " 
But now enthralled by deep solemnity, 
Death's pale, phantasmal shade I darkly greet ; 
Ghostlike it haunts the hearth, it haunts the street, 
Or drearier makes drear midnight's mystery. 
Ah, soul-perplexing vision ! oft I deem 
That antique myth is true which pictured Death 
A masked and hideous form all shrank to see. 
But at the last slow ebb of mortal breath, 
Death, his mask melting like a nightmare dream. 
Smiled, — heaven's high-priest of Immortality ! 

Paul Hamilton Hayne 



IX. To A Friend ^ 

( t-Vi/Zi Shakespeare' s Sonnets) 

What can I give him, who so much hath given. 

That princely heart, so over-kind to me. 

Who, richly guerdoned ^ both of earth and heaven. 

Holds for his friends his heritage in fee ? 

No costly trinket of the golden ore. 

Nor precious jewel of the distant Ind. 

Ay me ! These are not hoarded in my store, 

Who have no coffers but my grateful mind. 

What gift then ? Nothing ? Stay, this Book of Song 

May show my poverty and thy desert, 

Steeped, as it is, in love and love's sweet wrong, 

Red with the blood that ran through Shakespeare's heart. 

Read it once more, and, fancy soaring free, 

Think, if thou canst, that I am singing thee. 

Richard Henry Stoddard 

^ Is the sonnet Elizabethan, or Contemporary? 
2 rewarded, endowed ; see etymology of reward 



524 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

X. Science 

Science ! true daughter of old Time thou art, 
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. 
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, 
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? 
How should he love thee ? or how deem thee wise, 
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering 
To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies, 
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? 
Hast thou not dragged Diana ^ from her car, 
And driven the Hamadryad ^ from the wood 
To seek a shelter in some happier star? 
Hast thou not torn the Naiad ^ from her flood. 
The Elfin ^ from the green grass, and from me 
The summer dream beneath the tamarind-tree ? 

Edgar Allan Poe 



XI. "There never yet was Flower" 

There never yet was flower fair in vain. 

Let classic poets rhyme it as they will ; 

The seasons toil that it may blow again, 

And summer's heart doth feel its every ill ; 

Nor is a true soul ever born for naught ; 

Wherever any such hath lived and died, 

There hath been something for true freedom wrought, 

Some bulwark leveled on the evil side : 

Toil on, then, Greatness ! thou art in the right. 

However narrow souls may call thee wrong ; 

Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight. 

And so thou wilt in all the world's ere long ; 

For worldlings can not, struggle as they may, 

From man's great soul one great thought hide away. 

James Russell Lowell 

1 The goddess of the chase, a wood nymph, a sea-nymph, and the elf of 
the glade, — creatures of the fancy, as opposed to material realities 



hlOTABLE CONTEMPORARY iVRITERS 



525 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 



I. BRITISH AUTHORS 



William Mitford, 1 744-1827, historian; "A History of Greece." 

Jeremy Bentham, 1748-1832, political philosopher; "Principles of 
Morals and Legislation." Founder of the so-called Utilitarian 
school of philosophy. 

Frances Burney, 1752-1840, novelist; best known by the tale 
" Evelina." 

William Godwin, 1 756-1 836, po- 
litical philosopher and writer of 
didactic fiction ; famous for his 
" Caleb Williams." 

William Beckford, 1 759-1844, ori- 
entalist and scholar; author of a 
remarkable Arabian tale, " The 
History of Vathek," 

William Lisle Bowles, 1 762-1 850, 
English clergyman and poet; 
"Village Verse Book," and nu- 
merous sonnets. 

William Cobbett, 1 762-1835, po- 
litical agitator ; many reform 
pamphlets; famihar to the pres- 
ent generation by his " English 
Grammar." 

Samuel Rogers, 1763-1855, poet; "Pleasures of Memory." 

Ann Radoliffe, 1 764-1823, romancist ; her " Mysteries of Udolpho," 
a preposterously weird tale, had once great popularity. 

Sir James Mackintosh, 1765-1832, philosopher and historian; "A 
History of the Revolution of 1688." 

Isaac Disraeli, 1766- 1848, miscellaneous writer, father of Benjamin 
Disraeli; "Curiosities of Literature," "Calamities of Authors." 

Maria Edgeworth, 1 767-1 849, novelist; " Behnda," "Rosamond," 
"Moral Tales." 

James Hogg, 1770-1835 {The Ettrick Shepherd), Scottish poet; nu- 
merous poems of Nature. 

Thomas Hope, 1771-1831, orientalist and author; famous for his 
Eiastern tale " Anastatius." 




^y^^i^^u^^T^-^ i^^O'^jey^^^ 



526 



CAT H CARTS LITERARY READER 




Michael Scott, 1771-1835, novelist ; author of "Tom Cringle's Log," 

" The Cruise of the Midge," and other powerful tales of the sea. 
John Lingard, 1771-1851, eminent historian; "History of England." 
David Ricardo, 1 772-1823, the greatest political economist of his 

time ; " Principles of Political Economy 
and Taxation." 
James Mill, 1 773-1836, historian and phi- 
losopher; a disciple of Jeremy Bentham ; 
father of John Stuart Mill; " History of 
British India," "Analysis of the Mind." 
Robert Southey, 1774-1843, poet-laureate ; 

numerous poems, " Life of Nelson." 
Matthew Gregory Lewis {Monk Lewis), 
1 775-1 8 1 8, romancist and dramatist ; 
best known from his novel "The Monk." 
Jane Austen, 1775-1817, novelist; "Pride 
and Prejudice," "Sense and Sensibility." 
Jane Porter, 1 776-1 850, novelist ; " Thad- 
deus of Warsaw," " The Scottish Chiefs." 
Thomas Campbell, 1 777-1 844, lyrical poet; 
author of " The Pleasures of Hope," " Gertrude of Wyoming," 
and many shorter poems, familiar among which are his " Hohen- 
linden," "Ye Mariners of England," and 
" Lochiel's Warning." 
Henry Hallam, 1777- 1859, historian and 
critic; "Constitutional History of Eng- 
land." 
William Hazlitt, 1 778-1830, essayist and 
critic; "Table-Talk," "The Characters 
of Shakespeare's Plays." 
Sir Humphry Davy, 1778-1S29, chemist 
and natural philosopher; "Last Days of 
a Philosopher." 
John Gait, 1779-1839, Scottish author; 

" The Annals of the Parish." 
Henry, Lord Brougham, 1 779-1 868, states- 
man and historian; "Statesmen of the 

Time of George HL," "England under the House of Lancaster." 
Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, Irish poet, friend and biographer of 
Byron ; author of " Lalla Rookh," " Irish Melodies," and many 
songs and minor poems. 




'■^r^^-^^-e*^ 



^i-'ZrzrT-^ 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 527 

George Croly, 1780-1860, Irish author, Anglican clergyman; best 
known by his " Salathiel," a romance, and " Catiline," a poem. 

John Abercrombie, 1781-1844, Scottish physician; " Philosophy of 
the Moral Feelings." 

Sir David Brewster, 17-81-1868, Scottish physicist; "Life of New- 
ton," " More Worlds than One." 

Reginald Heber, 1 783-1826, Anglican bishop; " Bampton Lectures," 
" Life of Jeremy Taylor," and many religious poems. 

James Henry Leigh Hunt, 1784-1859, poet and essayist; "Story 
of Rimini," and many minor poems, and Lives of Wycherley and 
Congreve. 

James Sheridan Knowles, 1784-1862, Irish dramatist and novelist; 
"Virginius," "William Tell," "The Hunchback." 

John Wilson {Christopher North), 1 785-1 854, Scottish poet and 
essayist, editor of Blackwood's Magazine; " Lights and Shadows 
of Scottish Life," " Noctes Ambrosianae." 

Thomas De Quincey, 1 785-1859, essayist, critic, and miscellaneous 
writer; " Confessions of an English Opium-Eater," " Murder Con- 
sidered as One of the Fine Arts," " The Flight of the Kalmuck 
Tartars." 

Sir "William F. P. Napier, 1 785-1 860, military commander and histo- 
rian ; " History of the Peninsular War." 

Mary Russell Mitford, 1786-1855, writer of descriptive tales; "Our 
Village." 

Richard Whately, 1787-1863, Anglican archbishop of Dublin, meta- 
physician and philosopher; "Elements of Logic," " Elements of 
Rhetoric," " Lectures on Political Economy." 

Theodore Edward Hook, 1788-184T, humorous novelist; "Sayings 
and Doings," " Maxwell." 

Sir William Hamilton, 1788-1856, Scottish metaphysician and 
philosopher ; " Discussions on Philosophy." 

George Combe, 1 788-1858, Scottish writer ; " Essays on Phrenology," 
" The Constitution of Man." 

Richard Harris Barham, 1 788-1 845, divine and humorist; "The 
Ingoldsby Legends," in prose and verse. 

Sir Francis Palgrave, 1 788-1861, historian ; " History of the Anglo- 
Saxons," "Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth." 

The Countess of Blessington, 1789-1849, Irish writer; "Belle of a 
Season," " Idler in Italy." 

John Ramsay McCulloch, 1 789-1864. Scottish political economist; 
"Elements of Political Economy," "Dictionary of Commerce." 



528 



CATH CART'S LITERARY READER 



Frances Trollope, 1 790-1863, mother of Anthony TroUope ; novels 

and books of travel ; " The Abbess," " The Widow Barnaby." 
Bryan Waller Procter {Barry Cornwall), 1 790-1874, poet; "A 

Pauper's Funeral," and many short poems. 
Charles Knight, 1791-1873, historian and critic; editor of Knight's 

"Shakespeare," " Popular History of England." 
Michael Faraday, 1791-1867, eminent chemist and naturalist; " Re- 
searches in Electricity," " The Chemistry of a Candle." 
Patrick Frazer Tytler, 1 791-1849, Scottish historian and biographer; 
" History of Scotland," " Life of Raleigh." 

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792- 1822, 
poet; "Queen Mab," "The Revolt 
of Islam," "Prometheus Unbound," 
and numerous odes and sonnets. 
Frederick Marryatt (Captain R. N.), 
1792-1848, novelist; "Jacob Faith- 
ful," " Japhet in Search of a Father," 
" Peter Simple," " Midshipman 
Easy ; " many tales of the sea. 
Sir John F. W. Herschel, 1 792-1 871, 
astronomer and philosopher ; son 
of Sir William Herschel; " Outlines 
of Astronomy," " Sound and Light." 

% ^ y ^^^ Archibald Alison, 1 792-1 867, 

^y\/ ' ^' y/17Zy(-^^ Scottish historian and essayist; 

' " History of Europe," " Life of 

Marlborough." 
Felicia Dorothea Hemans, 1 794-1835, poet: "Hymns for Child- 
hood," "The Graves of a Household," many lays, lyrics, and 
songs. 
George Grote. 1794-1871, historian: famous for his "History of 

Greece." 
John Gibson Lockhart, 1794-1854, son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott ; 
Scottish critic and essayist ; " Life of Napoleon," " Life of Scott," 
" Adam Blair," a novel. 
"William Whewell, 1 794-1 866, philosopher and author; " History of 

the Principles of the Inductive Sciences." 
Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, 1 795-1 854, jurist, essayist, and poet; 

" Life of Charles Lamb," " Ion," a tragedy. 
Thomas Arnold, 1 795-1842, Head-Master of Rugby School (father 
of Matthew Arnold), historian; "Lectures on Modern History." 




NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 529 

William Howitt, 1795-1879, author of many narratives and sketches; 
"Two Years in Victoria," " Rural Life in England." Mary How- 
itt, his wife, aided him in his works. 

John Keats, 1796-1821, poet; "Hyperion," " Endymion," " Ode to 
a Grecian Urn," and beautiful odes and sonnets. 

Hartley Coleridge, 1 796-1849, son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; 
many essays and poems. 

George Robert Gleig, 1796-1888, Scottish divine and author; "The 
Subaltern," a novel ; historic narratives, the most notable of which 
is his " Battle of Waterloo." 

Agnes Strickland, 1 796-1874, historian; "Lives of the Queens of 
England and Scotland " (assisted by her sister Ehzabeth). 

Mary Godwin Shelley, 1797-1851, wife of the poet Shelley, daugh- 
ter of William Godwin ; celebrated for her tale " Frankenstein." 

Samuel Lover, 1797-1868, Irish novehst; " Rory O'More," "Handy 
Andy," and many other novels. 

Connop Thirlwall, 1 797-1 875, AngHcan bishop and historian ; "His- 
tory of Greece." 

Thomas Hood, 1 798-1 845, humorist, essayist, and poet; "Eugene 
Aram," " Bridge of Sighs," " Song of the Shirt." 

John Banim, 1798-1842, Irish novehst; "The O'Hara Tales," "The 
Smuggler." 

Robert Pollok, 1799-1827, Scottish poet; " The Course of Time." 

George P. R. James, 1 801-1860, novelist; many historical romances. 

Winthrop Mackworth Praed, 1 802-1 839, lawyer and writer; nu- 
merous essays and poems. 

Hugh Miller, 1802-1856, geologist and author; "Old Red Sand- 
stone," " Testimony of the Rocks." 

Alexander W. Kinglake, 1802-1891, historian; "History of the 
Crimean War." 

Robert Chambers, 1 802-1 872, Scottish author and publisher; "An- 
nals of Scotland," "History of the Rebellion of 1745." With 
his brother William he founded and published " Chambers's 
Journal." 

Harriet Martineau, 1802-1876, essayist, novelist, and economist; 
" The Hour and the Man," an historic novel ; " History of the 
Thirty Years' Peace," " The Laws of Man's Nature and Develop- 
ment." (Sister of Rev. James Martineau.) 

Douglas William Jerrold, 1803-1857, humorist and playwright; 
author of the "Caudle Lectures," published in London Punch j 
" Black-eyed Susan " is his best-known play. 

34 



530 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 



George Borrow, 1803-1881, traveler and novelist; " Lavengro," 

" The Romany Rye," tales of the Gypsy race. 
Sir James Emerson Tennent, 1804- 1869, traveler and descriptive 

writer; " Ceylon," " Modern Greece." 
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, 1805-1881, statesman and 

novelist ; " Vivian Grey," " Coningsby," " Lothair." 
James Martineau, 1805- , Unitarian clergyman; "Studies on 

Christianity." 
Charles James Lever, 1 806-1872, Irish novelist ; " Harry Lorrequer," 

" Charles O'Malley." 
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 1 806-1 863, statesman and political 

philosopher; " Influence of Authority in 
Matters of Opinion," " Credibility of 
Early Roman History." 
John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873, logician, 
political economist, and philosopher ; 
" Logic," " Political Economy," " Lib- 
erty," " Representative Government," 
and a fascinating " Autobiography." 
(Son of James Mill.) 
Samuel "Warren, 1 807-1 877, novelist ; "Di- 
ary of a Physician," " Ten Thousand a 
Year." 
Richard Chenevix Trench, 1 807-1 886, 
philologist and poet, AngHcan archbishop 
of Dublin; "The Study of Words," 
" Enghsh, Past and Present," "Synonyms of the New Testament." 
Charles Merivale, 1808- , English historian; "The Romans 

under the Empire," " Fall of the Roman Empire." 
Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton, 1 809-1 885, poet; 

"Life of Keats." 
Charles Robert Darwin, 1 809-1 882, great naturalist and scientist; 
" Origin of Species," " Descent of Man." . From him Darwinism 
and the Darwinian school of scientific thought take their names. 
Martin Farquhar Tupper, 18 10-1888, poet ; " Proverbial Philosophy," 

" The Crock of Gold." 
Robert Browning, 1812-1888, poet; "Paracelsus," "The Ring and 
the Book;" many shorter poems and lyrics,^ "The Lost Leader," 
" In a Balcony," " How they Brought the Good News from 
Ghent to Aix," etc. Husband of the poetess, EHzabeth Barrett 
Browning. 




J.f. Pl^ 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 



531 



Charles Mackay, 1812-1889, Scottish poet; "Town Lyrics" and 
many spirited poems of high merit. 

John Forster, 1812-1876, biographer and critic; " Lives of the States- 
men of the Commonwealth," " Life of Goldsmith," " Life of Lan- 
dor," "Life of Dickens." 

Charles Reade, 1814-1887, novelist, "Peg Woffington," "Christie 
Johnstone," "Very Hard Cash," and many other novels of great 
excellence. 





1 \'" ',/ 



(jjUh^y^ v^2^^5^L^ 



Anthony Trollope, 181 5-1882, novelist , " The Warden," "Barchester 
Towers," " Framley Parsonage," " Last Chronicle of Barset," and 
numerous other novels of English social life. 

Grace Aguilar, 1816-1847, poet and miscellaneous writer; "Home 
Influence," " Mother's Recompense." 

Samuel Smiles, 1816- , Scottish author; "Life of George 
Stephenson," " Self-Help," " A Scotch Naturalist." 

Sir Arthur Helps, 1817-1875, English historian and essayist; 
" Friends in Council," " History of the Spanish Conquest of 
America." 

George Henry Lewes. 181 7-1878, essayist and philosopher; "His- 
tory of Philosophy," " Life of Goethe," " Physiology of Common 
Life." 

Austen Henry Layard, 1817- , archaeologist and historian; 
"Nineveh and its Remains." 



532 CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 

Alexander Bain, 1818- , Scottish metaphysician; "The Senses 
and the Intellect," " The Emotions and the Will." 

Charles Kingsley, 1819-1875, Enghsh clergyman, novelist, historian, 
and poet; "Alton Locke," "Hypatia." 

Herbert Spencer, 1820- , philosopher; author of "Elements of 
Psychology," "Elements of Biology," "Social Statics," "First 
Principles of Philosophy," which, with other works, are compre- 
hended in his " System of Synthetic Philosophy ; " and of numer- 
ous essays, ethical, political, and scientific. 

David Masson, 1822- , Scottish biographer and critic; " Life of 
Milton," " British Novehsts and their Styles." 

Matthew Arnold, 1822-1888, poet, essayist, and critic; various son- 
nets ; essays on Byron, Wordsworth, and Dr. Samuel Johnson. 

Henry Thomas Buckle, 1822-1862, historian and essayist; author 
of the remarkable " History of Civilization in England," unfin- 
ished at the time of his death. 

Alfred Russel Wallace, 1822- , naturalist and philosopher; 
propounded simultaneously with Darwin the theory of natural 
selection. 

Thomas Hughes, 1823- ; "Tom Brown's School Days," "Tom 
Brown at Oxford." 

Goldwin Smith, 1823- , historical critic and biographer; "Three 
English Statesmen." 

Frederick Max Miiller, 1823- , philologist; "Lectures on the 
Science of Language," " Chips from a German Workshop." 

Edward Augustus Freeman, 1823- , historian ; " History of the 
Norman Conquest." 

Charlotte M. Yonge, 1823- , novehst; "The Heir of Redclyffe," 
and very many tales and miscellanies. 

Charlotte Bronte {Ciirrer Belt), 1824-1855, novelist; "Jane Eyre," 
" Shirley," " Villette." 

William Wilkie Collins, 1824-1889, novelist; "The Woman in 
White," " Armadale," " No Name," " The Moonstone." 

George Macdonald, 1824- , Scottish novehst and poet; "Alec 
Forbes," " Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood." 

Richard Doddridge Blackmore, 1825- , lawyer and novelist; 
" Lorna Doone," " Cripps the Carrier." 

Dinah Maria Craik (Miss Mulock), 1826-1887, novehst: "John 
Halifax, Gentleman," "The Ogilvies," "A Noble Life." 

George Meredith, 1828- , novehst and poet; " Love in the Val- 
ley," and other poems. 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 533 

Justin McCarthy, 1830- , Irish journalist and politician; "His- 
tory of Our Own Times." 

Edmund H. Yates, 1831- , novelist and editor; "Black Sheep," 
" Dr. Wainwright's Patient." 

Sir Edwin Arnold, 1832- , poet; "The Light of Asia," "The 
Light of the World," and many beautiful shorter poems. 

Sir John Lubbock, 1834- , naturalist and essayist; "The Pleas- 
ures of Life," •' Origin of Civilization." 

Mary E. Braddon, 1837- , novelist; "The Lovels of Arden," 
"Joshua Haggard's Daughter." 




P0mi^6ixru^^ 



John Richard Green, 1837-1883, historian ; " History of the English 

People," "The Making of England." 
Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837- , poet and critic; " Ata- 

lanta in Calydon," " Mary Stuart," many rondels and sonnets. 
John Morley, 1838- , essayist, pohtician, and biographer; "Life 

of Burke," " Life of Voltaire," " Life of Cobden." 
William E. H. Lecky. 1838- . philosophical historian; "History 

of European Morals." " History of England in the Eighteenth 

Century." 
F. A. Guthrie (" F. Anstey"), 1839- , humorist and writer of 

iiction ; "Vice Versa," "The Giant's Robe," "The Fallen Idol." 
Robert Buchanan, 1841- , Scottish lyric poet; "Undertones," 

" London Lyrics." 



534 



CAT H CARTS LITERARY READER 



William Black, 1841- , novelist ; " A Princess of Thule," " White 
Wings : a Yachting Romance," " A Daughter of Heth." 

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850- , novelist; "The Master of 
Ballantrae," - The Black Arrow," " The Treasure Island," " The 
Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and many short 
stories of a high order of excellence. 



Noah Webster, 

Dictionary." 




11. AMERICAN AUTHORS 
1758-1843, lexicographer; author of "Webster's 



Washington Allston, 1 779-1843, poet 
and painter ; " Sylphs of the Sea- 
son," sonnets and short poems. 

John James Audubon, 1780-1851, 
naturahst and traveler; "The Birds 
of America." 

William Ellery Channing, 1 780-1 842, 
theologian and essayist; "Lectures 
on Milton," "Self-Culture," "Evi- 
dences of Revealed Religion." 

Henry Wheaton, 1 785-1848, publicist 
and diplomatist; "Treatise on In- 
ternational Law," " History of the 
Northmen." 

Samuel Woodworth, 1 785-1 842, 
poet; numerous short poems, of 

; "The 



which the most famihar 
Old Oaken Bucket." 

John Pierpont, 1 785-1 866, clergyman 
and poet ; " Airs of Palestine," 
many hymns, odes, and lyrics, 
among them "The Pilgrim Fathers" 
and " Passing Away." 

Jared Sparks, 1 789-1 866, historian 
and biographer ; " Life of Wash- 
ington," " Life and Works of 
FrankHn." 

Catherine M. Sedgwick, 1 789-1 867. 
author of many novels and descrip- 
tive tales; "Hope Leslie," "The 
Linwoods," "Means and Ends." 




NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 



535 



Fitz-Greene Halleck. 1 790-1867, poet; 
" Marco Bozzaris," " Fanny," " Green 
be the Turf above Thee." 

George Ticknor, 1 791 -1871, historian 
and biographer; "History of Span- 
ish Literature." 

Lydia H. Sigourney, 1 791-1865, poet; 
"Pocahontas," "To-morrow," "The 
Dying Infant." 

Henry C. Carey, i793-i879» political 
economist ; " Laws of Wealth," " So- 
cial Science." 

Samuel G. Goodrich, 








oC\a^ aA^' 



^i^oooi^^ze^' 



^•^ 



'C^'T^^C-^^^lf'SP^J^ 



i793-i86o(i"^/^r ^%^J} 

Pa?' ley), volu- 
minous writer 
of tales and 
miscellanies. 

James Gates Percival,i 795-1 856, poet 
and geologist ; " The Coral Grove," 
" Seneca Lake," numerous short 
poems. 
Joseph Rodman Drake, 1 795-1 820, 
poet; "The Culprit Fay," and many 
shor| poems. 
John G. Palfrey, 1 796-1 881, divine and 
historian ; " History of New Eng- 
land." 



Francis Wayland, 1 796-1865, clergy- 
man, metaphysician, and political 
economist; " Moral Science," "Politi- 
cal Economy." 
'Albert Barnes, 1798-1870, clergyman 
and Biblical scholar ; " Notes on the 
Gospels." 
Rufus Choate, 1 799-1 859, jurist, advo- 
cate, and essayist ; numerous essays 
and addresses- 
Theodore Dwight Woolsey, 1801- 
1889. President of Yale College, theo- 
logian and jurist; "Treatise on Inter- 
national Law." 




/'z.^X 



536 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 




\j^\^^cAA^GiAJi)^vy/, 



George P. Marsh, 1801-1882, philologist; 

"Man and Nature," "History of the 

English Language." 

Lydia Maria Child, 1 802-1 880; many 

works of fiction, biography, and history. 

Jacob Abbott, 1 803-1 879; very many 

juvenile books, "The Rollo Books." 
John Lloyd Stephens, 1 805-1 852, trav- 
eler and author ; " Travels in Central 
America and Yucatan," " Egypt and 
Arabia." 
John S. C. Abbott, 1 805-1 877, biogra- 
pher ; " Life of Napoleon Bonaparte." 
William Gilmore Sims, 1 806-1 870; poet, 
historian, and novehst ; " Beauchamp," 
" Atalantis," " Martin Faber." 
Charles Fenno Hoffman, 1806- 1884, poet 
and fiction-writer ; " Winter in the 
West," " Moonlight on the Hudson." 
Matthew F. Maury (Captain U. S. N.), 
1 806-1 873, astronomer and hydrogra- 
pher ; " Physical Geography of the 
Sea," " Treatise on Navigation." 
Nathaniel P. Willis, 1 806-1 867, poet 
and editor ; " Better Moments," " The 
Death of Absalom," " The Belfry Pig- 
eon," and many lyrics. 

Richard Hildreth 




^':^^7^ 




1807-1865, historian; 
" History of the United States," " Japan 
as it Was and Is." 

Theodore Parker, 18 10-1860, theologian 
and scholar; "Experience as a Min- 
ister." 

Horace Greeley, 1811-1872; editor, po- 
litical economist, and politician ; founder 
of the New York Trihuie. 

Henry James, 1811-1882, philosophical 
writer; " Substance and Shadow," "The 
American " (father of Henry James the 
novelist). 

Charles Sumner, 1811-1874, statesman 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 



537 



and lawyer; many public ad- 
dresses, " The True Grandeur of 
Nations," "The Law of Human 
Progress." 

John W. Draper, 1811-1882, physi- 
ologist and chemist ; " Intellect- 
ual Development of Europe." 

Noah Porter, 181 1- , metaphy- 
sician and lexicographer ; presi- 
dent of Yale College; "Books 
and Reading," "The Human In- 
tellect," editor of several editions 
of Webster's Dictionaries. 





and biographer; "Field Book of 
the Revolution," " The War of 
1812." 

Henry T. Tuckerman 
essayist and critic ; 
land "Philosophy 
the Poets." 

Henry N. Hudson, 18 14- 1886, es- 
sayist and critic ; editor of Shake- 
speare. 

Joel T. Headley, 18 14- , histo- 
rian and biographer ; " Letters 
from Italy," " Napoleon and his 
Marshals." 



Harriet Beecher Stowe, 181 1- , 

novelist ; " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
" The Minister's Wooing." 

Alexander H. Stephens, 181 2-1 883, 
statesman and historian ; " The War 
between the States," " Compendium 
of United States History." 

Epes Sargent, 18 12- , dramatist 
and poet; "Poems of the Sea." 

Henry Ward Beecher, 181 3-1887, 
clergyman and author ; " Star Pa- 
pers," "Life Thoughts." 

Benson J. Lossing, 18 13- , histo- 
rian 



1813-1871, 
" New Eng- 
Th oughts on 




(J^^^7-X2^^^^^^^ 



538 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 




/kol.^ ^<u^y( 



Richard Henry Dana, Jr., 1 815-1882, lawyer and author; best-known 

for his " Two Years Before the Mast." 
John Godfrey Saxe, 1816-1888, humorous poet; "I'm grow- 
ing Old," " Rhyme of the Rail," and many poems and fugitive 
pieces. 
Henry David Thoreau, 181 7-1 862, trav- 
eler, philosopher, and author ; " Life 
^i[ ^-^^^te ^^ ^^^ Maine Woods," " Walden." 

^^'tefflh^SH^S John Bigelow, 1817- , diplomatist 

and biographer; "Life of Franklin," 
" Life of Tilden." 
Emma D. E. N. Southworth, 181 8- , 

author of numerous works of fiction. 
Walt Whitman, 18 19- , poet ; 

" Leaves of Grass," and other poems. 
Josiah G. Holland, 1819-1881 {Ti7nothy 
Titcomb), editor and miscellaneous 
writer ; " Bitter-sweet," a poem, " Let- 
ters to Young People." 
Herman Melville, 181 9- , author of 
many books of travel and tales of adventure ; " Typee," " Omoo," 
" Moby Dick," " The Piazzi Tales." 
William Wetmore Story, 18 19- , sculptor and poet; "Nature 

and Art," " Ginevra da Siena." 
James T. Fields, 1 820-1 881, poet and 
miscellaneous writer; "The Captain's 
Daughter," and short poems. 
Alice Carey, 1820-1871, poet; "Poems 
of Faith, Hope, and Charity," by AHce 
and Phoebe Carey, sisters. 
Ephraim G. Squier, 1 821 -1888, archaeolo- 
gist and traveler ; " Peru," " Nicaragua." 
Richard Grant White, 1 822-1885, phi- 
lologist and critic ; editor of Shake- 
speare. 
Thomas Buchanan Read, 1822-1872, 
poet ; " Lays and Ballads," " The New 
Pastoral," " The House by the Sea," 
" Sylvia." 
Edward Everett Hale. 1822- , clergyman and author; author of 
" The Man Without a Country,'" and many other excellent short 
stories. 







/PtyyiC 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 



539 



Donald G. Mitchell {Ik Marvel), 
1S22- , essayist and miscella- 
neous writer ; " My Farm at Edge- 
wood," "Reveries of a Bachelor," 
" English Lands, Letters, and Books." 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 
1823- , essayist and historian; 
"Young Folks' History of the United 
States." 

Francis Parkman, 1823- , historian 
and traveler ; " Pioneers of France 
in the New World," 

George H. Boker, 1823-1890, poet 

and dramatist ; " Anne Boleyn," 

" Calaynos. 





George William Curtis, 1824- , essay- 
ist, editor, and novelist ; " Nile Notes," 
•• Trumps," " The Potiphar Papers." 

Bayard Taylor, 1825-1878, traveler and 
author; "Views Afoot," "The Story of 
Kennett," and a translation of Goethe's 
" Faust." 

Richard Henry Stoddard, 1825- , edi- 
tor, critic, and poet: "The Burden of Un- 
rest," " Leonatus," " Songs of Summer." 

John T. Trowbridge, 1827- , miscella- 
neous writer and poet. 

Henry Timrod, 



1829-1 867, poet; 
"A Common Thought," "A Moth- 
er's Wail," and many short poems. 

Charles Dudley Warner, 1829- , 
editor and miscellaneous writer ; 
" Being a Boy," " Backlog Studies," 
" My Summer in a Garden." 

Charles Nordhoflf, 1830- , jour- 
nalist and miscellaneous writer; 
" Politics for 
" Communistic 
United States." 

Louisa M. Alcott, 1 833-1 888, writer 




Societies of the 



^ -^r 



ji 



e<;A^ 



^^^■''^'** C<>iyr^^^^^. 



540 



CATHCART'S LITERARY READER 




Samuel L. Clemens {Mark Twain), 
1835- , humorist ; " Innocents 
Abroad," " Huckleberry Finn," and 
many humorous sketches. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1836- 
poet, critic, and miscellaneous writer ; 
" Story of a Bad Boy," " Marjorie 
Daw." 

John Fiske, 1837- , historian and 

philosopher ; *' The Destiny of Man," 

" The Idea of God," " Cosmic 

P h i 1 o s o- 



of fiction and miscellanies ; " Little 
Women," " Little Men." 

Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1833- 
, poet, essayist, and critic ; " The 
Victorian Poets," " Poets of Amer- 
ica," " Poems, Lyrical and Idyllic." 

William Swinton, 1834- , jour- 
nahst, philologist, and historian ; 
" History of the Army of the Poto- 
mac," " Decisive Battles of the Civil 
War," " Studies in English Litera- 
ture," "Rambles Among Words," 
" Outlines of the World's His- 
tory." 





/^l^^^^^^^--'^^-^ 



phy," " His- 
tory of the 
American 
Colonies." 
William Dean Howells, 1837- ; mag- 
azine writer, author of several novels, 
and of some ventures in the field of lite- 
rary criticism. 
Francis Bret Harte, 1838- , writer of 
fiction and verse; "The Luck of Roar- 
ing Camp," " Thankful Blossom," " Con- 
densed Novels." 
Henry James, Jr., 1843- , novelist ; 
" Daisy Miller," " The American," 
"Tales of Three Cities." 



NOTABLE CONTEMPORARY IVRITERS 



541 



Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, 1844- ; tales and miscellanies ; 

" Gates Ajar," " Men, Women, and Ghosts." 
George W. Cable, 1844- , novelist ; " Old Creole Days," " Doctor 

Sevier," •• Tlie Grandissimes." 
Francis Marion Crawford, 1845- ^ novelist; "Mr. Isaacs," 

"Doctor Claudius," "Zoroaster," "Paul Patoff." 
Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849- » novelist; "That Lass o' 

Lovvrie's," " Little Lord Fauntlerov," •• Sara Crewe." 




/J^U^cuid^ Jcc^La^ 



UUJ^ijf ^« 



